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Upcoming Events
April 17, 2012
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Medical Update teleconference from Living Beyond Breast Cancer. 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST
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April 28-29, 2012
Annual Conference for Women Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer: Enhancing Your Health and Quality of Life; Philadelphia, PA;
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May 1, 2012
Public lecture by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Sponsored by the Northwestern University Physical Sciences-Oncology Center. Evanston Campus, Evanston, IL, 6 pm.
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May 5-8, 2012
National Breast Cancer Coalition Advocacy Summit; Crystal City, VA.
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May 5, 2012
IBC Networking opportunity; 6:30 pm until ?; location TBA in general vicinity of Hyatt Regency Crystal City.
Contact ibcRF for more information.
June 1-5, 2012
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting; McCormick Center, Chicago, IL.
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Sept. 13-15, 2012
ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium; San Francisco, CA.
More Information
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Just added -- new photos of IBC skin metastases in the Photos of IBC section of the web site. Thank you to the women who have agreed to share these with the IBC community.
Coming next month -- a report on research news of interest to the IBC community from the recently concluded AACR conference.
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Advocacy in Action: Talking to University Students about IBC
 | | Cornell Women's Crew Team |
In March, IBCer and advocate Maria Rabb spoke about Inflammatory Breast Cancer with the Cornell University Women's Crew Team in Ithaca, New York. (See Maria's smiling face in the front row, she is wearing a light blue shirt and glasses.)
Maria tells us "The talk was great. First Bob Riter from the Cancer Resource Center here in Ithaca spoke about breast
cancer with a powerpoint -- he is a breast cancer survivor (and he mentioned that there are many kinds, and IBC was one, even a photo of a big red breast), then me, with a personal story (and while I talked about IBC, I did not want to scare them too much, and my last thoughts to take home were to learn your body and pay attention if something seems wrong intuitively, and to try to learn to cope with stress and "not sweat the small stuff" as early in life as you can). Then Stephanie Gray, a lymph/oncology masseuse, spoke to them about getting to know their breasts, and how important it is to wear a bra that fits well and is not too tight, and to take it off and even do breast self-massage (a more positive thing than doing a breast check for lumps). The girls were at times laughing (awkwardly or not) and paying rapt attention. One of them admitted she had had a lumpectomy 3 years ago, which really brought it home. They plan to do an awareness- (maybe also fund-) raising event in the fall."
Maria downloaded the IBC Research Foundation's free informational brochure from the online store, and printed it to share at this event.
Advocate tip: you can also order professionally printed brochures and bookmarks, the cost is minimal and only covers the printing and mailing expenses.
Photo courtesy of Bob Riter, executive director of the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes. Bob has recently published a book: The Elephant in the Room: Practical Advice When the Diagnosis is Cancer (ISBN: 978-1462046584).
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Annual Conference for Women Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer
 One of the group of distinguished panelists at the Annual Conference for Women Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer is Dr. Beth Overmoyer.
In 2011, the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation awarded a $50,000 grant to Dr. Overmoyer to pursue her research project, "Validation of Jak2 as Novel Therapeutic Target in Triple Negative Inflammatory Breast Cancer."
Dr. Overmoyer explained that "We are geared to correlate the association of upregulated pSTAT3 activity and IBC in the laboratory and translate this understanding into the clinic by using JAK2 inhibition as a means of downregulating pSTAT3. This appears to be a very active method for cancer survival among triple negative breast cancers, and IBC in general, therefore our clinical trial will provide proof of concept that JAK2 inhibition is effective in this virulent disease, and should be part of standard treatment."
Beth Overmoyer MD, FACP is director of the Breast Cancer Research Program through Case Medical School, and has obtained funding for clinical/translational research from the NIH, AVON, and the American Cancer Society. Dr. Overmoyer was the director of the Clinical Trials Core at Case Medical School, and focuses her academic endeavors on therapies for breast cancer, specifically directing research in inflammatory breast cancer as the Director of the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
Anyone attending this conference might consider seeking out Dr. Overmoyer and express support for her work on IBC.
To read more about all the grants awarded by the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation, visit the Grants Awarded page on the web site.
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Did You Know?
The Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation was the first organized, non-profit inflammatory breast cancer patient advocacy group, incorporated in 1999. We remain a small, focused group yet have been able to have far reaching impact. In 2005 we began an inflammatory breast cancer biorepository to aid researchers in the study of IBC. The Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation BioBank is one of just a handful of advocacy owned and operated tissue banks in the country. Thanks to the generous support of our donors we've been able to invite researchers to apply for grant funding and have supported five different researchers with grants totaling nearly $300,000 from 2009-2011. We have a toll-free number (1-877-786-7422) and online form to allow individuals to access a trained volunteer with questions, and email discussion list to share information, education, and support to those in the IBC community.
In addition, the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation has an outstanding Medical Advisory Board who oversee our BioBank and provide input and guidance for our work as an organization.
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Deadline Approaching for Young Artist Contest!
 Do you have a child, grandchild, niece or nephew that likes to draw? If so, you need to get them busy drawing and they might be the creative force behind the next Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation Angel!
Our first angel project was in 2005. Children's angel drawings were passed along to pewter artist Jerry Jackson, who designed and hand-crafted an angel specifically for the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Each angel is hand-cast in pewter and signed.
So round up the kids in your family. Your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews (grand nieces & nephews too) any close relative of an IBC survivor or pathfinder is eligible if they are 16 or under.
Submit as many drawings as you like. Drawings should be done on plain white paper no larger than 8 1/2 x 11 inches. They should be done in pencil or black ink (no color please). Write the name and age of the child on the back of the drawing along with the name of and their connection to an IBC survivor or pathfinder.
Deadline is May 1, 2012. Send submissions to:
IBC Research Foundation,
P.O. Box 2805,
West Lafayette, IN 47906.
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