Kate Kiefer, president of BCRFA, and Edward Partridge, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama presented $775,000 — its largest donation to date — to the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center on Feb. 1. BCRFA has donated more than $5.8 million to UAB since its inception in 1996.
BCRFA makes an annual donation to the Cancer Center with proceeds from all its fundraising efforts during the previous year, including BCRFA events, corporate and individual donations, and sales of the breast cancer specialty license plate tags. This year, more than half of the total donation of $775,000 was raised through the BCRFA specialty car tag sales. Available at motor vehicle license offices across the state, the breast cancer research tag is the ninth most popular specialty tag in the state, with more than 10,000 vehicles sporting it.
“We are extremely thankful for this very generous gift from the community. Their support allows us to bring the most innovative care to our cancer patients and, as an extension, to their families,” said Edward Partridge, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Although we have made significant progress against the fight against breast cancer, sustained funding is critical to continued progress. The longstanding partnership between the BCRFA and the Cancer Center provides UAB investigators with the resources to accelerate discovery and translate new knowledge into meaningful therapies for all types of breast cancer. ”
BCRFA provides pilot funding for several projects ranging from examining the ways patients’ immune systems respond to triple-negative tumors to evaluating a new compound, UAB-30, for its ability to prevent breast cancer, to developing therapies to prevent DNA repair in a breast cancer tumor cell.
All BCRFA donations go to the UAB Cancer Center and stay in the state to help the residents of Alabama. Community partners for this year’s gift include Tameron Automotive, Belk, The Thompson Foundation, Sirote & Permutt, The Alabama Power Foundation, Spectrum Reach, and iHeart Media, among many others.