Living in Pink Research Funding Breast Cancer Bow

Since its inception in 2004, Living in Pink contributions have helped to fund a variety of local and national research endeavors to further the prevention and treatment of breast cancer.

Koji Itahana, Ph.D. 2009 Breast Cancer Bow

University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill

Identifying genes involved in breast cancer development is key to developing new medications that target the cancerous cells and to improving genetic screening guidelines. The Foundation is supporting Koji Itahana, Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill to study the role of a protein, p32, in killing breast cancer cells and preventing tumor formation. This work could increase our understanding of breast cancer genetics and lay the groundwork for identifying a new gene to help physicians assess cancer risk in patients.

Sandra M. Swain, MD 2008 Breast Cancer Bow

Washington Cancer Institute at Washington Hospital Center

Sandra M. Swain, MD, medical director, Washington Cancer Institute at Washington Hospital Center, accepted a gift of $35,000 from Living in Pink founder Michele Conley and committee member Kathleen Battista. "I am delighted that Washington Cancer Institute's research program has been selected to receive this gift, generated from the passion of women who share with me, the goal of eradicating breast cancer,? said Dr. Swain. "This donation will contribute toward this goal by supporting research for medical advances in breast cancer treatments. The contribution and support of Living in Pink is greatly appreciated." Thanks to this generous research grant, Dr. Swain is able to further her research focused on SRC tyrosine kinase, which is believed to play an important role in the development and progression of many cancers.

Robert Strange, PhD 2007 & 2008 Breast Cancer Bow

University of Colorado

Moderate exercise has recently been linked to a decreased risk of cancer; however, the mechanism responsible for the decreased risk is not understood. Dr. Strange's research proposes that, with exercise, angiogenesis will preferentially be increased in muscle, and blood flow will be directed and redistributed to muscle. Conversely, it is hypothesized that exercise will result in decreased angiogenesis and reduced blood supply in the tumor. This will in turn lead to an increase in tumor cell death, slowed tumor growth, and tumor regression. This study represents a first attempt to evaluate the effect of exercise on breast cancer progression by examining the mechanism responsible for exercise-mediated tumor growth inhibition.

Ehsan Samei, Ph.D. 2006 Breast Cancer Bow

Duke University Medical Center

Mammography is currently the most reliable screening technique used for breast cancer detection. However, this method of screening has difficulty visualizing masses and micro-calcifications hidden in dense tissue. Normal tissue, called anatomical noise, can prevent radiologists from seeing important changes in dense breast tissue. Acquiring two views of each breast can help radiologists eliminate this problem, but taking two views requires two separate, uncomfortable compressions of the patient's breast. Moreover, the image data from the two views cannot be directly compared. This study is investigating the feasibility of a new imaging procedure, called Stereo Imaging (SI), in which two digital radiographic images of the breast are acquired using a single compression. The SI method produces three-dimensional X-ray images with stereo views of the possible breast lesions and has the potential to be easily translated into clinical settings.

Ann-Marie Simeone 2005 Breast Cancer Bow

University of Texas - M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Almost half of women diagnosed with breast cancer after menopause are obese. These women also have a higher risk of developing secondary breast malignancies even after chemotherapy and mastectomy. Dr. Simeone is hoping to find an effective way to prevent these secondary cancers and reduce the death rate in these women. She believes that higher levels of the hormones prostaglandin E2 and leptin decrease these patients' sensitivity to chemopreventive drugs, including the drug tamoxifen. Simeone hopes to discover why this happens -- information that will help in the development of more effective, tailored chemopreventive strategies that would benefit obese breast cancer patients and improve their clinical outcome.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, except for nonmelanoma skin cancers. The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman�s life is about 1 in 7 (13.4%).

It was estimated that in 2005 about 211,240 new cases of invasive breast cancer would be diagnosed among women in the United States.

At this time there are slightly over 2 million women living in the US who have been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer.

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Living in Pink's Mission

The mission of Living in Pink, founded in 2004 by two-time breast cancer survivor and mother of four, Michele Conley, is to help find a cure for breast cancer so that the next generation of women will not have to endure the emotional and physical pain of breast cancer surgery and treatment.