Mother, grandmother, and biomedical scientist Kimberly Koss of Ohio is battling a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer, called triple negative — but has chosen to skip an initial round of chemotherapy in order to donate some of her deadly cells to science.
“It’s important research. Triple negative tumors are poorly understood, underfunded and have a high mortality rate, so hopefully this could help save lives in the long run,” Koss, 57, told Yahoo Health.
Though in the first days of her early May diagnosis she was “immobilized with grief,” Koss soon found motivation to contribute to science in her daughter and three granddaughters, ages 3, 5, and 6. “The clock is ticking with this disease, and we don’t know if there is a hereditary component,” she explained. “So to protect my daughter and my dear granddaughters, I needed to help find out.” She’s also set up a Facebook page, Hot Pink Activism, to help pressure Congress into triple-negative research, and launched a crowdfunding site to help pay for the research of her cells at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. With scientists already working to analyze her cells, she said, “Every day, that gives me hope.”
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