Komen for the Cure founder visits DUMC

posted April 29th, 2010

Victoria Seewaldt, M.D., director of the Women’s Wellness Program in the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, recently hosted a visit by Nancy G. Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The Komen Foundation, named after Brinker’s sister who died of breast cancer in 1980, has more than 100,000 volunteers working through a network of 125 U.S. and international affiliates, including one in the Triangle.

The Women’s Wellness Program is supported by several grants from the Komen Foundation, and Seewaldt shared results from some of the research projects those grants have enabled.

Seewaldt noted that young African American women in the Triangle have a very high death rate from breast cancer and said that the Komen Triangle affiliate had provided breast MRI for 540 underinsured and uninsured women.

Seewaldt, along with Duke colleagues Catherine Ibarra, Ph.D.; Catherine Hoyo, Ph.D.; Randy Jirtle, Ph.D.; and Marie Miranda, Ph.D., are involved in projects aimed at identifying early, signature epigenetic changes in breast cancer and new efforts utilizing geospatial mapping to investigate possible links between diet, the environment and breast cancer.

She told Brinker that her promise to her sister, Susan – to find a way to speed up research to find a cure for breast cancer – “is a promise we take personally and want for all of our patients.”

Carolyn Carpenter, associate vice president for oncology services, also briefed Brinker on plans for the new, outpatient cancer center slated to open in 2012.

Brinker was in the Triangle for an appearance at Meredith College in Raleigh.