Jackson Lab Staff Racing for the Cure

Date: October 6, 2003

Bar Harbor, Maine – Mice for the Cure, a team from The Jackson Laboratory including 17 employees and their families and friends, took part in this year’s Seventh Annual Komen Maine Race for the Cure, organized by the Maine Affiliate of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The 5K race was held along the Bangor waterfront on Saturday, September 21st to raise money for breast cancer research that may one day lead to a cure for what is the second most common cause of cancer death and form of cancer in women.

Debbie Krupke, a Senior Scientific Curator at the Laboratory, has been Mice for the Cure Team Captain for the past four years. “As someone who works in the area of cancer research and who has lost friends and family to cancer,” Ms. Krupke said, “it's personally important to me to participate in cancer fundraisers and to keep in touch with the cancer research advocacy community. I think it helps to continue to put a human face on what many of us are trying to accomplish here at The Jackson Laboratory, which is to aid the scientific community in finding ways to keep people from dying of cancer.”

Jackson Laboratory researchers are leading the way in discovering many disease-related genes using mouse models. It was announced in August that Jackson Laboratory Staff Scientist Tatyana Golovkina, Ph.D., had received the largest grant ever awarded in Maine by the American Cancer Society to continue her research studies of a novel mouse model that displays genetic resistance to mammary and other types of cancer. In total, The Jackson Laboratory maintains more than 70 different strains of mice that are used in breast cancer studies by research institutions around the world.

Jackson Laboratory Director of Scientific Program Development, Barbara Tennent, Ph.D., has participated in the race in Bangor since its 1997 inception. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 43,” Dr. Tennent said. “I had no risk factors and no family history, but I had insurance for annual mammograms. It is important to me to give something back, to try to help people who do not have the support I had. The Race for the Cure is also important to me because I wear the names of my sister-in-law and her sister, my childhood friends, who have both died of breast cancer. It is a very emotional way to honor them.”
 
Dr. Tennent is also involved with the Komen Maine Affiliate Grants Committee. “We have awarded almost $500,000 in local grants all over the state from Caribou to York,” she said. “These grants provide education, screening, treatment, and outreach breast health and breast cancer programs to underserved and uninsured people in Maine. I've been amazed by the creativity and energy of health care providers and educational groups in this state who have designed and delivered effective programs. It's been a great privilege to see the process through, from the extraordinary view of Bangor's streets filled with the Race to the testimonials from people who have received needed services from the Maine Affiliate's funded projects.”

The ever-growing Mice for the Cure team, all of whom have personal reasons for taking part, has designed special T-shirts for the event for the past six years. They have won “Best T-Shirt” three times now – in 1999, 2002, and 2003, and they won “Most Creative Name” for Mice for the Cure when the name was first used in 2000. The T-shirts were purchased from Union River Serigraphics in Ellsworth who provided the graphic design work free of charge. This year’s design has been a popular one with Laboratory employees, many of whom have bought T-shirts and made donations in support of the team.

The design includes a super-mouse figure with a cape. The mouse has a pink breast cancer ribbon logo on it. The back of the shirt displays a list of JAX® Mice used for breast cancer research, mouse footprints, and the words Mice For The Cure, The Jackson Laboratory. Fundraising totals for this year’s effort are still growing, but so far, Mice for the Cure has raised well over $2,000 in support of Komen.

2003 Mice for the Cure team members included Steve Barkan, Becky Bergstrom*, Daniel Bergstrom, David Bergstrom*, Samuel Bergstrom, Rebecca Corey*, Diane Dahmen*, Peggy Danneman*, Pat Eagan*, Deborah Gott*, Alice Grindle*, Karol Hagberg*, Maggie Hanscom*, Debbie Krupke*, Lori Krupke, Rebecca Krupke, Moyha Lennon-Pierce*, Lois Maltais*, Lori McLauglin*, Phyllis Mobraaten*, Elise O'Neil*, Jason Petrie, Linda Pomerleau, and Barbara Tennent* (Jackson Laboratory employee*)

Contact(s): Jade Harmer, Public Information Office, The Jackson Laboratory, (207) 288-6051

For information on automatic email delivery of news releases (journalists only), please send an email request for details to news@jax.org.

Media Relations, Communications Office
The Jackson Laboratory
600 Main Street
Bar Harbor, Maine 04609-1500
Phone: 207-288-6051
Fax: 207-288-6076
Email: news@jax.org