Karmelda Bradford

Fortunately, the lumps were benign cysts, but the experience convinced her of the importance of yearly check-ups. She became even more vigilant when her mother died of the disease in 1998 and her daughter passed away from inflammatory breast cancer in 2005.

An employee at M. D. Anderson for the past 11 years, Bradford is currently a manager in the Department of Nursing Payroll and takes advantage of the institution’s clinical trials.

In April 2004, she joined a study for women at high risk for breast cancer, in which magnetic resonance imaging is alternated with mammography at six-month intervals. Along with other participants, she is comforted that this combination may detect breast cancers not identified by mammography alone.

Discovery. Development. Dissemination.

Screenings are just one way that M. D. Anderson — through the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences — is transforming minds and lives. A $35 million gift from the Dan L. Duncan Family Foundation in 2008 has allowed establishment of the Duncan Family Institute for Cancer Prevention and Risk Assessment. The institute encompasses research in the areas of behavioral science, clinical cancer prevention, epidemiology and health disparities.

In each of these areas, discoveries are made and tested in clinical studies, from which evidence-based information on prevention and risk assessment can be developed and eventually disseminated to the general public as well as scientific, governmental and health care institutions and agencies.