Reaching new frontiers in research

Barbara Forster

Barbara Forster's task is clear.

Her grandparents had cancer. She also lost both parents and a younger brother to the disease. She now wants to do everything she can to prevent her family — and other families around the world — from suffering such a profound loss.

That's why she and her family decided to give $1 million for cancer prevention efforts at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center: half for an endowed professorship and half for research.

"Prevention research is helpful for everyone who is at risk for cancer, particularly families with a high risk," says John Kersey, M.D., director of the Cancer Center and holder of the Children's Cancer Research Fund Land-Grant Chair in Pediatric Oncology. "That's when prevention becomes especially important."

According to Kersey, prevention is one of the greatest needs in cancer research. So, rather than funding research to find new treatments, Forster and her family decided to take the long view by partnering with the center to eventually reduce the need for such therapies.

And Forster has a great view of what philanthropy can do. She has a long history with the Minnesota Medical Foundation, having joined its board of trustees in 1988. She chaired the board from 1996 to 1998 and provided critical leadership in the opening years of the University's Campaign Minnesota. She has also served on the Cancer Center's community advisory board, taking over as chair this year.

Additionally, in 2004 Forster was named to the Dean's Board of Visitors, a group of community leaders that provide perspective and counsel on the Medical School's strategic direction.

Dorothy Hatsukami, Ph.D., is testing a vaccine to help people stop smoking. Unlike the nicotine patch, which helps smokers gradually withdraw from nicotine, the vaccine targets the nicotine and blocks it from getting to the brain.

With this deeper insight into the University's needs, the Forster family was well positioned to help handpick the researcher who would hold their endowed professorship. They wanted someone talented, committed, and personally motivated by cancer prevention research. They found that person in Dorothy Hatsukami, Ph.D.

Hatsukami directs the University's tobacco-use research programs and holds faculty positions in psychiatry, psychology, and epidemiology. She works on nicotine addiction and treatment and on reducing toxin exposure and other harmful effects related to tobacco use.

Hatsukami has always been interested in finding treatments for addictive disorders, but her own recent experience with cancer became a more personal motivation for prevention research. "I don't want people to ask themselves whether they will live long enough to see their children graduate from high school or college or see them get married," says Hatsukami.

Forster's motivation is similar. She has 10 grandchildren, and she wants them to grow up in a world where the word cancer doesn't mean what it meant to her. "That's a lot of what motivates us in this stage of life — you want to improve things for the next generation," she says.