Survivors + Scientists Take 2
The Leung lab writes about working with the breast cancer patient community to combat the disease beyond the lab
Anthony Leung's lab is researching molecules inside cells aiming to translate our findings to cancer therapy. But they are more than that, they want to have direct interactions with the people who will benefit our research—the real cancer fighters, the survivors!
One in eight women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. Do you know someone who have breast caner? Can we end this horrible disease?
May 6th and 7th, 2017 was a wonderful opportunity to encourage face-to-face conversations between Scientists and Survivors. Aravinth Jaybalan from the Leung lab at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was partnering with the Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer Survivor community at Johns Hopkins Hospital to fundraise by walking over 39 miles in two days. This walk was organized by the Avon 39 - The Walk to End Breast Cancer.
Aravinth is a postdoctoral fellow researching on a cellular structure that is implicated to resistance to chemotherapy. Aravinth comes from India and he walked at least 1 hour per day to his school since he was twelve so he is well-prepared for this marathon walk.
It is common for researchers doing long hours of work for better understanding diseases and finding new treatments, but have never met the beneficiaries of our hard work face to face.
We now want to put human faces on the molecule so as to keep us going in difficult research time.
For more about Leung lab outreach efforts, check out the Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine story The Patient Researcher.
For more photos from the event, visit the Leung lab's Facebook album.
