Bowers named inaugural recipient of Breast Cancer Challenge Award
November 29, 2017
Dr. Laura Wells Bowers
Laura Wells Bowers, PhD, RD, a postdoctoral scholar with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been named the inaugural recipient of the TOS-Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Challenge Award, sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Bowers, who works in the lab of Stephen Hursting, PhD, professor of nutrition in the Gillings School, was selected from among 40 entrants and was one of only five finalists chosen to present their research orally at the cancer section of Obesity Week, held Oct. 29 to Nov. 2 in Washington, D.C.
Her talk, “Obesity-Associated Chemotherapy Resistance in Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: The Role of Leptin-Induced Tumor-Initiating Cell Enrichment,” earned top honors, which included a $7,500 award.
Bowers also is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and her early research was funded by Lineberger’s Cancer Control Education Program. The work she presented during Obesity Week was accomplished in the Hursting Lab at UNC and at UNC’s Nutrition Research Institute in Kannapolis, North Carolina.
Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu
