News

Collaboration makes the IU team unique

BY Ruth Cook, Vera Bradley Classic Steering Committee Member

Bloomington, Indiana (June 2, 2008) —

People in Indiana may not actually recognize who’s here in Indianapolis, but the outside world knows who is here in the clinical research area. In the arena of the greater world, some major accomplishments have occurred here,” shares. Linda Malkas, Ph.D., the Vera Bradley Chair in Oncology and Co-Director of the Vera Bradley Center for Breast Cancer Research Laboratories.

The who that Dr. Malkas refers to is the brilliant 28-member breast cancer research team she co-directs with George Sledge, M.D., a world-renowned oncologist. The $10 million pledge made by the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer supports the work of this remarkable team.

According to Dr. Sledge, “There are many things in cancer research and indeed in research in general that drive people apart. We have funding systems for instance that tend to reward rugged individuality rather than working together. And yet everything we know about how researchers work and should work is that they work better if you bring people together, and particularly if you bring creative people from many fields together.”

The breast cancer research team at Indiana University is unique in that it has the ability to move from the research lab to the patient bedside and back again. The program is highly interactive and has members from eleven departments of the IU School of Medicine, combining a strong team of investigators that span the clinical translation arena, structural biology, gene expression, pathology, animal models, proteomics, genomics, biostatistics and bioinformatics. In layman’s terms…we are supporting an incredible concentration of brainpower!

What Dr. Sledge and Dr. Malkas are proudest of is their ability to merge pure, basic researchers who may never have seen a patient, with oncologists and surgeons who work solely in the clinic. Doctors who work across both areas, the translational oncologists, are able to work with individuals who have never had anything to do with cancer research before, but perhaps have an exciting new technology. The willingness and the ability to collaborate is something that marks this program among other leading breast cancer programs in the country.

“Research cures cancer. I think that’s very straightforward,” says Dr. Sledge. “All the goodwill in the world won’t cure cancer but research will. And research will cure cancer when we’re able to bring all of our resources together. The support of the Vera Bradley Foundation has been immensely helpful to our group in terms of creating a cutting edge, internationally recognized research group.”

With a look of fierce determination on her face Dr. Malkas says, “We are working diligently on creating the tools, detectors, chemotherapy, therapeutic strategy, new radiation, whatever it takes to really kick cancer’s butt.” With a big smile she adds, “I believe that Indiana University and its breast cancer team has the soldiers in place and the expertise and skills to actually go and take a good bite out of cancer. It’s time. It’s really time!”

Editor’s Note: We couldn’t agree with you more Dr. Malkas, and we’re honored to support you and your team!

See all News