A three-woman research team from Vista Community Clinic, the Moores UCSD Cancer Center and San Diego State University is the recipient of the Faith Fancher Research Award.
Natasha Riley, MA, program manager, Breast Health Program, Vista Community Clinic, Georgia Robins Sadler, PhD, MBA, clinical professor of surgery at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and an associate director of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center, and Vanessa Malcarne, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University, share the award for their community collaborative project, Breast Cancer Clinical Trials Education Program. The overall goal of this project is to find ways to increase the participation of African American and Latin American women in cancer research studies so that scientific advances will benefit them as well as others.
According to Sadler, low clinical trial participation by minorities is a problem because it limits researchers' ability to apply findings to diverse populations and often means that minorities will be given medical care based on research that involved mostly white middle class communities.
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| George Sadler, PhD, MBA |
It also may mean that the latest medical care options usually associated with clinical research will be less available to minorities. This new program uses the theme, "Women united against breast cancer," and is offered in both English and Spanish.
Faith Fancher was a long-time television news anchor and personality with KTVU (Oakland) who waged a very public battle against breast cancer. She also was the founding member of the California Breast Cancer Research Program Executive Team, which formed in 2001 to help raise the program's visibility and fundraising profile. Fancher passed away in October 2003 after a six-year struggle with breast cancer. The Faith Fancher Research Award is presented to a researcher, institution, or community-based organization whose work reflects those values that she held most closely and extends the work that she did for women facing breast cancer.
The UCSD Moores Cancer Center is one of the nation's 40 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, combining research, clinical care and community outreach to advance the prevention, treatment and cure of cancer.
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Media Contact: Steve Benowitz, 619-543-6163, sbenowitz@ucsd.edu