It must not be common: a breast-cancer researcher who actually has breast cancer herself. But I just read about one in a local newspaper. Here's an excerpt:

Like many of its survivors, Deborah Breiter hopes there comes a day when no one has to hear their doctor say “You have breast cancer.”

That she may have had a hand in bringing that day about excites the Rockford College professor of chemistry and biochemistry about a research project she started work on at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford during a 2006 sabbatical. Results of the project, which were published in August, show promise for a procedure with the ability to stop cancer dead in its tracks.

“Right now, we have the ability to treat cancer and we have many survivors, but they’re still living with cancer every day,” said Breiter, who was diagnosed with breast cancer on April 1. “We have limited capability to target these rapidly growing cells and have them go through programmed cell death.”

What do you think?