METAvivor representatives visit with grant recipient Balamurugan Kuppusamy and Esta Sterneck. From left, CJ Corneliussen-James, co-founder, Katy McRae, volunteer, and Kelly Lange, operation grants coordinator, METAvivor; Balamurugan Kuppusamy, and Esta Sterneck. Photo courtesy of Kelly Lange.
Three representatives of METAvivor visited NCI at Frederick on April 13 to meet and tour with Balamurugan Kuppusamy, Ph.D., staff scientist in the laboratory of Esta Sterneck, Ph.D., senior investigator, Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Signaling, Center for Cancer Research. The purpose of the visit was to learn more about Kuppusamy’s research.
Kuppusamy is a recipient of a $50,000, two-year grant awarded by METAvivor to study the role of the CEBPD-FBXW7 signaling pathway in inflammatory breast cancer.
METAvivor is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “the specific fight of women and men living with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer,” and it grants funding for research that “specifically addresses the mechanistic understanding, diagnosis, and/or treatment of metastatic breast cancer,” according to its website. Each of the three visiting METAvivor representatives is living with metastatic breast cancer.
“Research is not just about discovery, but about finding ways to promote the overall quality of life for patients,” Kuppusamy told the METAvivor visitors. “That is what I hope that my research on inflammatory breast cancer will eventually lead to.”
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are not an endorsement of METAvivor by the U.S. government or employees of NCI at Frederick.