Group 4D: Inflammatory & Triple Negative Breast Cancer; Biomarkers; Clinical Trials; Immunotherapy
Thursday, June 15
10:00 am – 11:30 am Eastern Time (US/New York)
Mentor: Ginny Mason, R.N.
Ginny Mason is a nurse who was diagnosed with stage 3C inflammatory breast cancer 25 years ago. Her diagnosis of a less common and very aggressive breast cancer led her down an over 20-year career path in patient advocacy. She has been with the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation since its inception in 1999 and currently serves as the executive director.
Ginny works in a variety of capacities as a board member, advisor, mentor, grant reviewer and medical consultant for a variety of organizations, including ASCO, the Department of Defense, the American Association of Cancer Research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Komen Advocates in Science, and various other advisory/consultant roles with other organizations.
Ginny is a graduate of the Project Lead Institute and serves as a member of the breast committee of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), the Indiana University representative for the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), and the Breast Cancer Brain Metastasis Initiative: Marina Kaplan Project of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance.
Twitter: @IBCnurse, @IBCResearch
Scientist: Larisa Gearhart-Serna, Ph.D.
Larisa (“Risa”) was trained as a cancer biologist and environmental toxicologist, and completed a specialized postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University after graduating in 2021 with her Ph.D. in Pathology from Duke University. She received her MBA in Management in 2022. She is now both an Innovation Fellow for the National Cancer Institute and a Research Analyst for Duke University, and serves as a scientific Editor and an Institutional Biosafety Committee member. She is passionate about translational cancer research, therapeutic development and commercialization, and cancer community partnerships.
