In Tribute
Amy Bonoff
Breast Cancer Research Program Consumer

My name is Amy Bonoff and I am affiliated with SHARE and with the National Breast Cancer Coalition. I was diagnosed when I was 49 years old and the comment was right at the beginning “You better do everything you can.” So I had chemotherapy, I had radiation, I had stem cell transplant, and then I had the other breast removed.

I got involved because I wanted to start giving back. So I actually found NBCC, and through NBCC I also found SHARE, which is a hotline program in New York and breast cancer support program. I was educated at Project Lead, the National Breast Cancer Coalition education on biology and epidemiology of breast cancer, and then I was very lucky to be chosen for the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.

Being involved in the Breast Cancer Program is truly an exceptional experience because you are sitting in the room with scientists, with researchers, with clinicians, all of whom are working together to try and come to the right decision on funding. And you are part of that process, and it’s a very sobering, very exciting, and very responsible position. That’s what you feel – you feel responsible because you are the consumer and you want to show people in the room, all of whom have certainly better education than you do, certainly more scientific education, that you too can add something to the process.

We no longer have the luxury of time. I cannot state it loud enough that we cannot spend another 50 years to bring scientific inquiry to the population and affect a cure. We need to devote more attention to potential clinical applications arising from our broader understanding of the causes of cancer. It calls for creative thinking in order to advance these ideas at a faster pace, prove efficacy, while preserving safety.

What I am excited about today is there are new ideas that are taking hold in this environment. Non-traditional thinking that we can only hope will enhance more rapid movement towards new therapeutics and bring us closer to a cure.

Amy Bonoff, 1947-2015.