The Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama presented $650,000 — its largest donation to date — to the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, for a total exceeding $5.1 million since BCRFA’s inception in 1996.BCRFA has made an annual donation to the Cancer Center with proceeds from all its fundraising efforts during the previous year, including BCRFA events, corporate and individual donations, and sales of the breast cancer specialty license plate tags.
“We are extremely thankful for this generous gift. Without the help of the community, none of this would be possible,” said Edward Partridge, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. “If I could clone exactly what BCRFA does for breast cancer research and care for all of our other cancer areas, we would make tremendous breakthroughs, as we have done with breast cancer.”
BCRFA provides pilot funding for several projects at UAB to accelerate discovery and translate new knowledge into meaningful therapies for all types of breast cancer. Projects range from examining the ways patients’ immune systems respond to triple-negative tumors, which are among the hardest to treat, to developing therapies to prevent DNA repair in breast cancer tumor cells.
All BCRFA donations go to the UAB Cancer Center and stay in the state to help the residents of Alabama. Community partners for this year’s gift include Winn-Dixie, Docupak, Tameron Automotive, Belk, Sirote & Permutt, The Alabama Power Foundation and others.