Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Recognizes Work of Andrew Abramson, Co- Founder of Cure Breast Cancer Foundation

CLIFTON, N.J. – The tireless efforts of Cure Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF), to raise important funds for breast cancer research have not gone unnoticed. The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center recently bestowed a significant honor to the 501(c) 3 charity to recognize its work and the determination of its leaders.

The world-renowned cancer research and treatment institute acknowledged Andy and Lisa Abramson, co-founders of CBCF, listing their names as a Principal Benefactor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering engraved in the lobby of the Rockefeller Research Laboratories. Also recognized with an engraving was the charity itself, Cure Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.

Under the direction of Mr. Abramson, and his daughter and co-founder Carly, the Clifton, N.J.-based CBCF has raised over $4.5 million since its inception in 2007. The money donated supports the research of Dr. Norton, Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Breast Cancer Programs and the Medical Director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

CBCF’s efforts assist the research of Dr. Larry Norton, who is leading the fight against breast cancer with groundbreaking work that addresses cases when the disease spreads to other parts of the body where it can currently be controlled, but rarely cured. Dr. Norton’s team is dedicated to changing this by focusing our efforts on a revolutionary new concept of cancer that offers many possibilities for new methods of diagnosis, treatment, and even prevention.

CBCF supports a dedicated team of physicians and scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and New Jersey and their national and international collaborators.

All this work is coordinated by Dr. Norton, CBCF’s scientific advisor. It is based on the discovery that abnormal cell division is only one of the dangerous characteristic of cancer.

Cancer cells also have the capability of moving from one part of the body to another and indeed can circulate back to the place they came from in the first place—called “self‐seeding”—and become more aggressive in the process. When cancers are in one place—say the breast area—they can be removed completely or killed by irradiation; but the movement of cells is a bigger problem, one which Dr. Norton and his associates are tackling head on by using the most advanced weapons of medical science, including:

• Studying the ability of a very particular kind of white blood cell—cytotoxic neutrophils—to kill cancer cells. These neutrophils and the molecules that stimulate them, called chemokines, are present in the blood of women with breast cancer but not in women without cancer. How these cells are stimulated and how their presence contributes to a good prognosis is the basis for ongoing work.

• Studying the molecular make‐up of white blood cells (lymphocyte) that invade breast cancers and cancers of many other organs and can actually stimulate their growth. This discovery will likely enable not only diagnostic tools, but also open entirely new avenues of cancer therapy.

• Studying how cancers evolve in their primary site (the breast) and in metastatic sites. By tracking the changes in DNA in individual cancer cells from several sites simultaneously in individual patients, CBCF scientists plan to monitor such movement as well as define the molecular mechanisms that make the cancer cancerous. This will open up many opportunities in diagnosis, prognostication (predicting the course of disease), and eventually therapy too.

• Developing a mathematical understanding of breast cancer metastasis. With great effort to protect the confidentiality of the patients, CBCF scientists are examining these data to map patterns of spread. Results so far confirm the seeding concepts in that the patterns elucidated cannot be explained without incorporating self‐seeding.

• Assessing the relationship between certain molecules derived from cancer cells found in blood—called miRNAs and exosomes—and the geometry of cancerous masses as measured on microscope slides and radiographic images. Cancer seeding has a direct influence on geometry, since more seeding produces more disorganized and denser masses. The goal here is to be able to interpret blood tests along with mammograms and MRIs to better predict who has cancer and who requires therapy.

• Studying in New York and Israel the relationship between bone metabolism and breast cancer, finding intriguing relationships between the function of bone‐forming cells and breast cancer biology. This work relates to both breast cancer and osteoporosis, two common problems in post‐menopausal women throughout the world.

For more information on the CBCF, please call (973) 471-CBCF (2223) or visithttp://curebreastcancerfoundation.org.

Cure Breast Cancer Foundation

The Cure Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) is a Clifton, N.J. – based not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charity devoted to fund research on the growth and spreading of breast cancer cells, also known as the Self-Seeding Theory, at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan and other national and international cancer research facilities under the direction of Dr. Larry Norton, who serves as the Foundation’s Scientific Advisor. The founder and president is Carly Abramson. Her father, Andrew Abramson, is Treasurer. For more information, call (973) 471-CBCF (2223), e-mail info@curebreastcancerfoundation.org or visit www.curebreastcancerfoundation.org.