On Thursday, Sept. 21 at 6pm at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, the Prevention is the Cure program will explore the revolutionary possibility of breast cancer vaccination, a preventative measure that could use a woman’s own immune system to protect herself from developing the disease. This program will feature a talk on groundbreaking vaccine research by Dr. Vincent Tuohy, along with a panel discussion featuring experts who will explore the current state of breast cancer in the United States, from incident rates to treatment paradigms. The panel (listed below) will identify the scientific basis underlying a breast cancer vaccine, and address the political, scientific/medical, financial and public perception barriers that stymie the rapid progress needed to bring such a vaccination to fruition.
Doors open at 5:30pm. A light reception will follow the discussion and Q&A. Tickets are complimentary, but required for admission.
Attendees can find parking in the Playhouse Square Parking Garage (1450 Chester Avenue) or in nearby surface lots.
Moderator:
Romona Robinson
Primary Anchor, WOIO-TV 19
Author, "A Dirt Road to Somewhere"
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Panelists:
Dr. Margaret I. Cuomo, MD
Board-certified Radiologist
Author, "A World Without Cancer: The Making of a New World and the Real Promise of Prevention"
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Jack Miner
Managing Director
Cleveland Clinic Ventures
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Dr. Holly Pederson, MD
Staff Physician and Director of Medical Breast Services
Breast Center, Cleveland Clinic
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Dr. Kathleen Ruddy, MD
Founder and Medical Director of the Breast Service, Clara Maass Medical Center
Founder and President, Breast Health And Healing, private practice
Founder and Executive Director, Breast Health & Healing Foundation
Creator, Pink Virus Project
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Dr. Vincent Tuohy, PhD
November Distinguished Chair in Innovative Breast Cancer Research and Staff, Department of Immunology, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic
Professor, Department of Molecular Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University
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This program is generously supported by Women Who Care About Breast Cancer.
Panelist Bios:
Romona Robinson
Romona Robinson is an eight-time Emmy award winning anchor, speaker and author of “A Dirt Road to Somewhere.” She is one of the most respected and admired journalists in northeast Ohio and was inducted into the Press Club of Cleveland's Journalism Hall of Fame in 2016. She is winner of the prestigious Edward R Murrow Award along with her station, WOIO-TV 19, where she serves as primary anchor. She received EWAW's 2017 Alpha Woman Award, given to women who exemplify power in their field and uses it to empower women.
Her tireless work in the community with children, women and diversity issues, has earned her many prestigious awards. The YWCA's Women of Achievement, The Diversity in Media Award and many more. For 20 years, she has served as Honorary Chair of the Komen Race for the Cure. She's most proud of creating Romona's Kids in 1990, a program to highlight and encourage children to realize their full potential.
Romona earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcast Journalism from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Dr. Margaret I. Cuomo, MD
Dr. Margaret I. Cuomo, MD, is the author of “A World Without Cancer: The Making of a New Cure and the Real Promise of Prevention," published by Rodale in 2012. Dr. Cuomo is a board certified radiologist who served as an attending physician in diagnostic radiology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. Specializing in body imaging, involving CT, ultrasound, MRI, and interventional procedures, much of her practice was dedicated to the diagnosis of cancer and AIDS. She is the daughter of the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo and Mrs. Matilda Cuomo, sister to Governor Andrew Cuomo and CNN’s Chris Cuomo, and the wife of Howard Maier.
Dr. Cuomo is the creator and host of the first TV one-hour special program on cancer prevention, entitled, "A World Without Cancer," produced by PBS. The program has been airing nationally since November 2016. She has been interviewed on many TV shows, such as Good Morning America, Morning Joe and Inside Edition, and has been featured in many magazines including Better Home and Gardens, Glamour, O Magazine, Parade, Redbook and People.
Jack Miner
An accomplished expert in biomedical commercialization, Mr. Miner is Managing Director of Cleveland Clinic Ventures. In his role at the helm of Cleveland Clinic Ventures, Mr. Miner oversees a team that focuses on the 77 spin-off companies in its portfolio. He also plays a lead role in spinning off new companies and raising the funds needed to not only get off the ground, but to get all the way to market.
Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic, Miner was director of the Venture Center at University of Michigan and was responsible for launching startups and creating a business formation infrastructure around intellectual property. In that role, he helped to launch more than 50 startup companies and worked with a portfolio of more than 300 emerging technologies spanning all industries.
Dr. Holly Pederson, MD
Holly Pederson, MD, is a Staff Physician and Director of the Medical Breast Program at the Cleveland Clinic, which she helped create, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Pederson is a nationally recognized specialist in breast cancer risk assessment and prevention. She runs a Hereditary High Risk Clinic for patients with identified genetic mutations predisposing to breast cancer, family members of mutation carriers or patients from families with a strong family history of breast cancer.
Dr. Pederson earned her M.D. from the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine where she was recognized in the Alpha Omega Alpha honors society. She completed her internship and residency at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center in internal medicine, as well as a clinical fellowship in Genomics at Cleveland Clinic. She serves on the Genomics High Risk Focus Group at Cleveland Clinic as a member of the Cancer Genetics Program of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and on the NCCN Breast Cancer Risk Reduction Committee.
Dr. Kathleen Ruddy, MD
Kathleen T. Ruddy, MD, author of “The End Of Breast Cancer: A Virus and the Hope for a Vaccine” (Skyhorse Publishing) is an internationally recognized breast cancer expert; Founder and Medical Director of the Breast Service at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey (1995); Founder and President of Breast Health And Healing, her private practice in New Jersey (1999); Founder and Executive Director of the Breast Health & Healing Foundation (2008); and creator of the ongoing Pink Virus Project (2009). After completing her surgical residency as Chief Resident in 1994, Dr. Ruddy was chosen as the first Fellow on the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The following year, Cancer Treatment Centers of America recruited her to establish the Breast Service at the Clara Maass Medical Center.
In 2006, Dr. Ruddy was invited by the royal family of Kuwait to create a Breast Service at the Royal Hayat Hospital, and, in 2007, she received a WHO grant to begin a mammogram screening program in Uganda. In 2008, Dr. Ruddy earned the first International Masters for Health Leadership at McGill University and established the Breast Health & Healing Foundation, the first and only nonprofit devoted to the discovery of the causes of breast cancer and primary prevention of the disease.
Dr. Vincent Tuohy, PhD
Dr. Vincent K. Tuohy, Ph.D is the Mort and Iris November Distinguished Chair of Innovative Cancer Research, a member of the Staff in the Department of Immunology at the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, and a Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Tuohy hails from Brooklyn, NY where he received his Ph.D. in Pathology from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Tuohy completed his postdoctoral studies in autoimmunity at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Waltham, MA.
As a Cleveland Clinic immunologist since 1989, Dr. Tuohy characterized several new autoimmune animal models for studying human diseases including sudden deafness, heart failure, interstitial cystitis, prostatitis, and ovarian failure. More recently, Dr. Tuohy developed a novel vaccine for preventing triple negative breast cancer and another vaccine for preventing epithelial ovarian carcinoma. In recognition for his breast cancer vaccine studies, Dr. Tuohy received the F. Mason Sones 2010 Innovator of the Year Award from the Cleveland Clinic as well as the 2010 Excellence in Science Award from the Lerner Research Institute.
