Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Cancer patient’s charity in Boston received its biggest donation ever from the annual fund-raising bicycle ride.

The Jimmy Fund, which supports Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, received $26 million from the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge during a ceremony at Harvard Medical School. In August, 4,300 cyclists rode up to 192 miles across the state and raised what organizers contend is the largest sum by an athletic fund-raising event.

Nearly 43-hundred cyclists participated in the event in August and this year’s total is up by $3 million dollars from last year.

This year’s fund-raising pushes to $171 million the total brought in by the event.

“It really allows us to make a major investment in research,” said Edward J. Benz Jr., president of Dana-Farber.

“The PMC monies allow us to cover research expenses that are not well covered by federal grants,” Benz said, citing major pieces of equipment, start-up costs for recruiting scientists, and clinical and applied research, as examples.

“Without the PMC, we would really struggle to meet our mission,” Benz said. “It allows us to operate at a level of excellence and size that would be very difficult to achieve if it weren’t there.”

Dana-Farber relies heavily on unrestricted fund-raising. The Challenge’s contributions account for more than half of the unrestricted funds Dana-Farber has received from all sources, Benz said.

Run for Hope’, inspired by cancer victim Terry Fox, raised more than $200,000 for cancer research. Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan flagged off the event at Sentosa’s Tanjong Beach.

Terry Fox Runs are held in 50 countries around the world. Seoul’s has been going since 1991 — a non-competitive run or walk over five or nine kilometers to raise money for cancer research.

People can either run the whole nine kilometers as a part of competition or simply go through 5 kilometers for fun. But all of the participants, nearly 5000 of them are running for Hope