Launching today: Reporter Kristen Dahlgren's Pink Eraser Project seeks to end breast cancer as we know it

Breast cancer survivors Michele Young, a Cincinnati attorney, and Kristen Dahlgren, an award-winning journalist, are launching a nonprofit they believe could end breast cancer, once and for all.

Introducing the Pink Eraser Project: a culmination of efforts between the two high-profile cancer survivors and the nation's leading minds behind a breast cancer vaccine. The organization, which strives to accelerate the development of the vaccine within 25 years, launched Jan. 30.

The project intends to offer what's missing, namely "focus, practical support, collaboration and funding," to bring breast cancer vaccines to market, Young and Dahlgren stated in a press release.

The pair have teamed up with doctors from Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cleveland Clinic, MD Anderson, Dana-Farber, University of Washington’s Cancer Vaccine Institute and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to collaborate on ideas and trials.

Leading the charge is Pink Eraser Project's head scientist Dr. Nora Disis, the director of the University of Washington's Oncologist and Cancer Vaccine Institute. Disis currently has a breast cancer vaccine in early-stage trials.

“After 30 years of working on cancer vaccines, we are finally at a tipping point in our research. We’ve created vaccines that train the immune system to find and destroy breast cancer cells. We’ve had exciting results from our early phase studies, with 80% of patients with advanced breast cancer being alive more than ten years after vaccination,” Disis in a release.

“Unfortunately, it’s taken too long to get here. We can’t take another three decades to bring breast cancer vaccines to market. Too many lives are at stake," she added.

Ultimately, what Disis and the Pink Eraser Project seek is coordination among immunotherapy experts, pharmaceutical and biotech partners, government agencies, advocates and those directly affected by breast cancer to make real change.

“Imagine a day when our moms, friends, and little girls like my seven-year-old daughter won’t know breast cancer as a fatal disease,” Dahlgren said. “This is everybody’s fight, and we hope everyone gets behind us. Together we can get this done.”

After enduring their own breast cancer diagnoses, Dahlgren and Young have seen first-hand where change can be made and how a future without breast cancer can actually exist.

“When diagnosed with stage 4 de novo breast cancer in 2018 I was told to go through my bucket list. At that moment I decided to save my life and all others,” Young, who has now been in complete remission for four years, said.

“With little hope of ever knowing a healthy day again, I researched, traveled to meet with the giants in the field and saw first-hand a revolution taking place that could end breast cancer," she said.

“As a journalist, I’ve seen how even one person can change the world,” Dahlgren said. “We are at a unique moment in time when the right collaboration and funding could mean breast cancer vaccines within a decade."

"I can’t let this opportunity pass without doing everything I can to build a future where no one goes through what I went through," she added.

Learn more at pinkeraserproject.org.