Breast Cancer Alliance

One in eight women in the U.S. will develop breast cancer. If that number doesn't shock you, that's likely because you know someone who has had it—or have been diagnosed yourself. The sad reality is that the disease is pervasive and no one is immune. Even men can get it—their risk of breast cancer is about one in 833.

But there's good news here, too. Breast cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was. There are 3.8 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. today. Women are getting screened earlier. Endocrine therapy is decreasing recurrence rates. Targeted therapies, like monoclonal antibodies, are getting better. And it's all thanks to decades of tireless research and advancements.

That's why, as we kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are proud to partner with Breast Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to improving survival rates and quality of life for those impacted by breast cancer. The organization, founded by six women in 1996, invests in early-stage research and breast surgery fellowships—the only breast cancer charity to do so—and enables underserved patients to gain access to early detection, prevention and breast health care support. To date, BCA has provided $32 million in grants to doctors and hospitals across the U.S., leading to life-saving breakthroughs in the field.

From now until the end of year, #VBGIVESBACK will be donating proceeds from every single veronicabeard.com order to this worthy cause—and that's on top of volunteer efforts and special give-back days at our stores nationwide. Here, at VB Edit, we'll be sharing stories of the different faces of cancer—the young, the old, male, female, Black, white, Asian, Hispanic. "We're all in this together," says Yonni Wattenmaker, BCA Executive Director. "If we can work together and support one another, instead of staying in our silos, that is from where progress will come."

Below, we talk to a few of the scientists and doctors whose game-changing research was funded by Breast Cancer Alliance.

“Because of BCA, we are closer to understanding why breast cancer recurs. We were able to kickstart our project to learn more about the environments that allow for cancer cells to thrive, and we are one step closer to combatting this, eliminating recurrence, and saving lives.” — Dr. Marjan Rafat, Vanderbilt University

“Because of BCA, we were able to investigate our risky ideas to find new vulnerabilities and therapeutics for triple negative breast cancer, a journey full of surprises and expectations. Support from BCA not only provides financial support for our scientific projects, but more importantly, stimulates my research team, especially the next generation of young scientists, in faithfully facing conceptual and technical challenges during their studies on this funded project. We do hope that we can move our bench-side discoveries to human clinical trials and save lives.” — Dr. Pengda Liu, UNC-Chapel Hill

“Because of BCA, we were able to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms of dissemination used by early-stage breast cancer cells. Early-stage breast cancer cells are able to disseminate from the mammary epithelium, reach secondary organs and remain non-proliferative for several years in a dormancy state. Eventually, these dormant early-stage breast cancer cells will become reactive and form life-threatening metastases. Thus, characterization of early-spread breast cancer cells, which have the capacity to form future relapses, may help us to identify women with a higher risk for the disease to come back and to offer them newly designed therapies to prevent reactivation of early-spread breast cancer cells.” — Dr. Maria Sosa, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai