Susan G. Komen®, the world’s leading breast cancer organization, announced today a new effort to better understand and address why certain populations of breast cancer patients have different outcomes, including why African-American women are 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than their white counterparts. Made possible by a grant from Genentech, a Member of the Roche Group, the organization invited Komen-funded researchers to apply for supplemental funding to expand existing research projects by adding a disparity lens, with the goal of better understanding and addressing disparities in breast cancer outcomes.
“We are excited to offer this new funding opportunity to ensure populations at risk for disparities in breast cancer outcomes are represented in research studies,” said Victoria Wolodzko, Komen’s senior vice president of mission. “We are incredibly thankful to Genentech for sharing our commitment to eliminating breast cancer disparities and for making these grants possible.”
The Komen-Genentech Breast Cancer Disparities Research Supplemental Grants will provide up to $250,000 in support over two years to bring a disparities research lens or focus to the scope of work conducted by the researcher. Through these grants the two organizations have prioritized research designed to understand the biologic, behavioral, social and systems causes of breast cancer disparities in patient populations that experience poor breast cancer outcomes.
Through increased support of research to address populations who experience disparities, Komen seeks to be able to close the gap and save lives. Moreover, with these grants Komen hopes to help grow the pool of data on populations who experience disparities through research and data-sharing, improve representation of minority populations in clinical trials, and broaden the impact of high-quality disparities research studies.
