Breast+Cancer+Broader+Impacts

__ Technology __
GEN Magazine reported the mobile app "My Cancer Genome" in September of 2014 as one of the Best Science Apps. With the expansion in technology development, many companies are going to apps for "to the minute Point-of-Care-Diagnostics". My Cancer Genome was made by Vanderbuilt University. GEN magazine reported it for free use with the iPhone®and the iPad®. There is a variant page to browse/search diseases, genes, and gene variants (GEN [] accessed 4/1/2016). By selecting a disease, the app gives a description of the kind of cancer and known genes. Their is also the option of selecting drug names, classes or targets. The reported downfall was there was no description of the drug's mechanism of action.

__ Money and Ethics __
Breast Cancer Awareness began officially in 1992 by Estée Lauder Cosmetics when they gave out pink lapel ribbons as the first-ever nationwide campaign (MarieClaire Magazine http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a6506/breast-cancer-business-scams/ accessed 4,3,2016). Since then, October has become the National Breast Cancer Awareness month. Large money making groups have become sponsors to find the cure. One of the largest sponsors has become the NFL. In October, referees use pink whistles and team members wear pink cleats, chin straps, whistles and even throw a pink football.

MarieClaire Magazine reported in September, 2011 that not all sponsorships and charities are created equal. Donations do not always go to research funding, as they are supposed to. There are some organizations that are not real. They use exploitation of donators to keep monies raised for themselves or to pay their sales-callers. Similar groups will used donated funds to print brochures and other advertisements for big money-raising events. Sometimes, these same charities will spend the raised funds for the event itself, instead of giving a sizeable donation to an actual research group.

Sadly, there are no standard systems in place to review where charities put the money taken in. The IRS requires financial reports for what gets taken in and what gets spent on the organization's overhead and what gets donated, but there is no person or organization that performs audits. Some states require a CPA to review the records, but many of the pop up companies alter the actual amounts. Also, there are many reports of solicitation by "charities". Anyone can begin a charity, but what gets donated to really help find a cure is hard to pin down.

MarieClaire Magazine lists observed organizations that use the donated funds for research and treatment:
 * Breast Cancer Research Foundation
 * Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
 * The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
 * Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
 * The John Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center

__ Celebrities/Social Aspect __
There are almost countless women in the Entertainment industry that have suffered from breast cancer. Some have made their stories more known than others. Singers Sheryl Crow and Carly Simon both battled breast cancer.

Actress Christina Applegate and actress Cynthia Nixon both survived their bout of breast cancer. Interestingly, both mothers of these two actresses also had breast cancer. Nixon did not reveal her diagnosis with the public, due to the attached stigma she felt. After being cancer free for a few years, she became an activist.

Singer Kylie Minogue was initially misdiagnosed. By insisting to her doctor, her breast tumor was detected. She urges women to take responsibility for their own health and to be their own advocates when need be.

Olivia Newton John, singer and actress, inspires survival through her music and raises awareness of early detection. Similarly, actress Jaclyn Smith offers an online support page, called "Strength in Knowing".

Hoda Kotb and Giuliana Rancic are both on TV and have no problem letting the cameras in on their life and their journey's through breast cancer. By showing the various emotions and steps involved with diagnosis and treatment, the public gets a true sense of what the disease is and what is currently being done to treat it. Awareness is able to be front and center through watching their stories unfold.

Another celebrity, has made waves with the public and cancer organizations. Suzanne Somers did not want to go through the traditional route of chemotherapy and looked into alternative treatments. Her outspoken decisions were controversial in what current research was telling the public and what she was advocating for herself.

__ Future __
In future works,researchers have many different aspects to look at and figure out. From the articles, here are some of the author's ideas of what to work on:
 * The measures of modular heterogeneity will be further dissected into sub-molecules. The hope is that the sub-modules will give more specific and meaningful information to identify effective personalized medicine (Pouladi et al., 2014).
 * Goals of enhancing the predictive power of histologic grading and intracellular pathways within tumor types to increase pharmacological response (Donahue and Genetos, 2013).
 * Identifying how structural variation, such as CNV, chromosomal translocations, insertions, deletions, contribute to development and disease, gene amplification during evolution and generation of cellular diversity (Donahue and Genetos). CNV were noticed with gene TP53/PIK3CA-will need to explore more of their interaction and individual roles (Ping, Z, 2014).
 * Finding out how many genes are involved in BC tumorigenesis (Donahue and Genetos, 2013).
 * What extent BC evolves within a patient, in the absence or presence of treatment (Donahue and Genetos, 2013).
 * To attain goals of precision oncology using of different sequencing approaches: targeted sequencing, whole exome sequencing, and whole genome sequencing (Ping, Z, 2014).
 * Sequential biopsy and evaluation of molecular biomarkers and mutations of metastases put in clinical routines (Deng et al., 2014).
 * The ability to grow DTCs from bone marrow, with the unique ability of the culture to maintain original mutational status, serves as investigational resource for drug treatment/therapies (Deng et al., 2014).
 * Continuation of large scale whole genome sequencing projects, like The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to provide sequence data and pathologic data, with clinical treatment info made publicly available-opportunity to identify biomarkers (by data mining) (Ping, Z, 2014).

__ Acknowledgement __
I wish to thank Dr. Sarah Prescott for her advice and guidance in this research project.

Home: Personal Genomics of Breast Cancer Current Findings More Results Current Testing Gene of Interest Materials and Methods Discussion Works Cited    I wish to thank Dr. Sarah Prescott for her advice and guidance in this research project.
 * Breast Cancer Research Foundation
 * Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
 * The University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
 * Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
 * The Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center