The Melanoma Research Foundation was founded in 1996 by Diana Ashby, a melanoma patient.  Diana created the MRF after three years of battling the deadly cancer, a period in which she grew increasingly frustrated with the ineffectiveness of the current medical treatments for melanoma.  This time also marked the emergence of Diana's especially strong sense of compassion for other melanoma patients, a trait that became the catalyst for her actions in the final year of her life.

After the tragic loss of several close friends to melanoma in the early months of 1996 and the third recurrence of her own tumors that summer, Diana's frustration turned to determination and she began to investigate alternative therapies and trials for promising new drugs.  She discovered that the research and development of such new treatments were often stalled due to inadequate funding.  The founding of the MRF was the result of Diana's struggle and will to make a difference.

In accordance with Diana's vision...by funding basic cancer research...we can make a difference in the lives of others.  Her remarkable enthusiasm, hopeful vision, and the unique compassion for others lives on in the organization she founded to help find the cure for malignant melanoma.  She worked night and day...finally stopping only when the cancer had taken her eyesight and her voice.

- Captain Jeff Ashby, NASA Shuttle Pilot and Diana's husband

Diana died from the cancer only 8 months later, but today the MRF continues to grow from the energy of melanoma patients and families who volunteer their time and efforts to speed the cure for this deadly cancer.