Dr. Bruce Stillman (left), President and CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, describes to Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy how her government appropriations have benefited the The Center for Women’s Cancer Genomics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which will accelerate the discovery of genes that cause breast and ovarian cancer during her visit to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on June 14, 2004. Dr. James Hicks, Director of the Center for Women’s Cancer Genomics, looks on.

Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy visited Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Monday, June 14 for the first time since obtaining government appropriations to launch the Center for Women’s Genomics and the DNA Biopsy Project for breast and ovarian cancers at the Laurel Hollow facility. During her visit, she met with Dr. Bruce Stillman, President and CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Dr. James D. Watson, Nobel laureate and Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; and some of the scientists directly involved in the projects she has fought to promote.

“Congresswoman McCarthy’s effort to obtain funding for these is vital and brings us much closer to an understanding of breast and ovarian cancer,” Dr. Stillman said.

Using advanced technology, The Center for Women’s Cancer Genomics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will accelerate the discovery of genes that cause breast and ovarian cancer and will validate their usefulness as diagnostic and prognostic tools and as drug targets.

Dr. Michael Wigler, a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientist who developed the DNA Biopsy program to predict types of cancer and courses of treatment, shows his work to Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy during her visit to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on June 14, 2004.

CSHL researchers are currently using ROMA technology to find the genetic basis for the difference in survival in two groups of women diagnosed with stage 2-breast cancer and treated similarly, but who either survived or died within a year. These results will be used to develop the “DNA Biopsy” that can predict which cancers are likely to spread and should therefore be treated aggressively, which cancers will respond to standard treatments, and which should not be treated because they are benign.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit basic research institution. Under the leadership of Dr. Bruce Stillman, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), more than 330 scientists at the Laboratory conduct groundbreaking research in cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, and bioinformatics. For more information, visit www.cshl.edu.

Nobel laureate and Chancellor James D. Watson and Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy spend time together during her visit to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on June 14, 2004 to observe the success of the Center for Women’s Cancer Genomics and DNA Biopsy programs, which McCarthy’s government appropriations work is funding.

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