With Pink Week having started Monday, RSOs have been in the Schwitzer Student Center with their tables all week and will be there until the end of Friday.
The tables are selling merchandise to raise money for breast cancer research. Every year, Indianapolis Student Government participates in Pink Week, and according to President Tyler Offutt, ISG is selling t-shirts. All proceeds will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
According to its website, the Susan G. Komen Foundation funds a number of things ranging from 50 scientific conferences to 2,500 researchers who carry out thousands of research projects.
“Our granting process is rigorous, ensuring that only best science is funded,” the Komen Foundation website says. “From our scientists-in-training to our seasoned researchers and Komen Scholars, we strive to push the field of breast cancer forward, translating research into real advancements in the clinic—new ways to prevent, detect, and treat breast cancer. Plus, our researchers are not just scientists; they’re survivors, spouses, sons and daughters. Their passion to end breast cancer is just as great as ours.”
ISG is not the only RSO that is participating in Pink Week. The Resident Hall Association is selling pink ribbons for $2 at its table.
Students or faculty who buy the ribbons can write about someone who has been affected by breast cancer.
“For residents, they can put it [the ribbon] up in their windows. And for commuters, they can put it up in their car windows,” said RHA President Rae Junard.
Junard also said that whichever hall buys the most pink ribbons will win $100.
According to seer.cancer.gov, an estimated 2,899,726 women are living in the United States with breast cancer, while 12.3 percent of women will develop and be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Seer.cancer.org also estimates that around 40,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in the year 2014.
Cancer research has come a long way, however, according to Professor of Stem Cell Science at the Blizard Institute in London Ian Mackenzie.
“I’m a cancer researcher, and the traditional model for testing drugs which are used for cancer therapy is to use a mouse,” he said on the BBC Radio 4 Today program in July of 2013. “But recently, there have been great advances made in the laboratory in growing cancer cells in dishes, and I think it’s got to the stage where, in many situations, this provides a much more accurate model than the mouse. Appropriate development of new laboratory tests, which are effective and meaningful, could reduce the number of animals used by half. It would have advantages for the mice—but it would also have a lot of advantages for people—because this could actually increase the rate at which we develop drugs, and that would be in itself very valuable.”
