The Farrah Fawcett Foundation will fund research for HPV-related cancers.The foundation announced that it was partnering with Stand Up for Cancer and is going to provide $1.2 million in funding for this research over the next three years.

The new research will “focus on patients with HPV-driven cancers (including anal, cervical, and head and neck cancers) who relapse following initial therapy, and for whom few therapeutic options are available, and will provide a novel approach to improving outcomes in this population.” Farrah Fawcett died of anal cancer back in June of 2009. She was 62 years old.

“We are very pleased to continue Farrah’s legacy by supporting this important scientific initiative,” Alana Stewart, president of the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, said in a statement following the foundation’s announcement.

Announcing the new @SU2C-Farrah Fawcett Foundation #HPV Translational Research Team @HPVAnalCancer #AACR14 pic.twitter.com/bRa16Uq4T8

— AACR (@AACR) April 8, 2014

Farrah Fawcett’s biggest claims to fame included a photo of her modeling a skimpy (or so it was considered at the time) red bathing suit and playing the role of Jill Munroe on the hit 1970s TV show Charlie’s Angels. The bathing suit photo became iconic and droves of young men hung posters of Farrah wearing it in their bedrooms in the 1970s. Fawcett appeared in several films as well, including Logan’s Run.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2006, Fawcett was twice in a relationship with actor Ryan O’Neal, who returned to her side when she was diagnosed with cancer and stayed with her until the end. She and O’Neal had one child–Redmond O’Neal–who was in jail on a drug conviction at the time of his mother’s death.

In 2007 Farrah Fawcett took a small video camera along with her during one of her appointments with her oncologist. From that point on she documented her cancer ordeal. Aired after her passing, she earned a posthumous Emmy Award for her work on the documentary.

Farrah would no doubt be pleased to know that her cancer foundation was funding research into several cancers related to HPV–among them the anal cancer that wound up taking her life.

Image via Wikimedia Commons