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UCF, Cancer Research to Benefit from Saturday’s Cure Bowl

Although UCF is not in a football bowl game this year, the university will still benefit from one.

Proceeds from the AutoNation Cure Bowl on Dec. 19, which pits San Jose State vs. Georgia State, will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation– the largest private funder of this kind of research worldwide.

UCF cancer expert Annette Khaled has earned $250,000 worth of grants from this organization to date for her research into cells that spread cancer throughout the body. Khaled, an associate professor of biomedical sciences, was inspired to dedicate her career to cancer research because her grandmother was diagnosed with the deadly disease.

Her colleagues call Khaled the “Cancer Assassin” because her work focuses on stopping cancer cells that metastasize – or spread from their original tumor to the body’s brain, lungs and bones. It’s the spreading to organs and the damage it causes that kills most cancer patients. The cells are hard to find, hard to target and hard to kill. Khaled and her team are looking at drug therapies and other technologies to do just that.

To see a video about Khaled’s work click here [1].

Khaled, College of Medicine Dean Deborah German and her fellow colleagues at the College of Medicine are supporting Khaled by attending the bowl game. A portion of ticket sales go to BCRF.

BCRF is the only breast cancer organization to receive an A+ rating from Charity Watch and spends 91 cents of every $1 it receives on research into a disease that affects one in eight women. Khaled is one of just five cancer researchers in Florida to receive BCRF support. The others are at the University of Miami and Mayo Clinic.

The game kicks off at 7 p.m. at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. Tickets are available at https://curebowl.com/ [2]