The National Cancer Institute sponsors a big grid, a computational web connecting an increasing number of cancer research institutes and the scientists who work there. At a conference, the annual meeting of this growing community called caBIG, for Cancer Bioinformatics Grid, speaker Susan Love, a prominent breast cancer surgeon and director of a foundation that fosters breast cancer research, announced an initiative that needed computational support.
She has launched the Love/Avon Army of Women, an organization set to draw larger numbers of potential women to participate in studies concerning breast cancer. The army is supposed to grow to one million women, and now has 300,000 women in its ranks all of whom who have agreed to
consider participation in studies. These numbers are remarkable because scientists and physicians have difficulty recruiting people for clinical trials or for studies in which women are interviewed to determine factors that influence breast cancer incidence, severity, outcomes, and overall treatment success.
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