Find The Cause Breast Cancer Foundation will honor television personality Jill Martin at its annual Prevention Party Friday evening at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, spotlighting both a survivor's story and the foundation's push to understand what actually causes the disease in the first place. The event starts at 6 p.m. and includes a reception, dinner and awards program.
Martin, an Emmy Award-winning television personality, New York Times best-selling author and longtime lifestyle and commerce correspondent on NBC's TODAY show, is this year's honoree, according to the Find The Cause Breast Cancer Foundation. She was diagnosed in 2023 with Stage IIB breast cancer and learned she carries a BRCA2 mutation, the foundation says. Following her diagnosis, Martin underwent a double mastectomy, lymph node removal, chemotherapy, radiation and multiple reconstructive surgeries.
Gretta Monahan, a breast cancer survivor who serves on the foundation's board and received its 2024 Prevention Champion award, will co-chair Friday's party alongside Ricky, as reported by the Boston Herald. Monahan has said she hopes the foundation's research will ultimately yield answers that help prevent breast cancer altogether, per the same report.
Why the Foundation Targets Environmental Causes
Find The Cause funds scientific research into the environmental causes of breast cancer and works to educate the public on prevention, the foundation notes. Nearly 90% of people diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of the disease, the foundation says, and one in eight women will face a breast cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. The incidence of diagnoses among women under 50 is climbing by 1.4% each year, according to the organization.
That statistical backdrop lines up with research summarized by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which states that most women who develop breast cancer have no family history of the disease, suggesting an environmental link. Boston University researcher David Sherr previously told the Boston Herald that environmental chemicals or other as-yet-unknown factors may contribute to somewhere between 70% and 90% of breast cancers.
A Consortium Chasing the Chemistry of Cancer
Find The Cause is funding a consortium of four scientific laboratories at Boston University and Tufts University aimed at discovering which chemicals cause breast cancer, how they cause it and how to stop them, according to the foundation. The group has invested more than $2.5 million in prevention-focused research over the last five years, per Boston University's Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Last year the foundation awarded $580,000 in new research grants to six scientists, including BU faculty members Stefano Monti and Xaralabos (Bob) Varelas.
Monti's lab is studying how environmental exposures, nutrition and aging influence tumor initiation and progression, the medical school reports. He has also developed high-throughput technology capable of rapidly screening thousands of chemicals for their effects on cancer-related signaling pathways inside human cells, according to the foundation's consortium page. Varelas, meanwhile, is examining how defects in mammary tissue mechanics — including increased tissue stiffness — may contribute to how breast cancer develops.
Elsewhere in the consortium, the Kuperwasser Lab is investigating whether chronic, cumulative exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals might drive early-onset ER-positive breast cancer, the foundation says. Researcher Victoria L. Seewaldt is separately directing work on biomarkers for early detection, with particular focus on triple-negative breast cancers. Sherr has told the Boston Herald that the long-term goal is a simple blood test that could flag molecular changes signaling that cells may be turning malignant.
What Friday's Party Is Celebrating
Caitlyn Mosher Ellis, the foundation's executive director, has said the Prevention Party exists to celebrate that research, framing environmental-cause studies as work that could lead to real prevention but that requires critical funding to continue. The foundation offers several ways to take part, including event tickets, party tables, a Find The Cause x Cove Fine Jewelry pendant, and direct donations.
The gathering continues a tradition for the Boston-based foundation, which has hosted the Prevention Party in past years at the same Seaport hotel; the 2024 edition, also held at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, counted Food Network personality Katie Lee Biegel among its co-chairs. Find The Cause identifies itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with EIN 04-3506574.
