We Want YOU! Donate Your Healthy Breast Tissue

We Want YOU! Donate Your Healthy Breast Tissue

On February 5, 2012, Indianapolis hosted Super Bowl XLVI, marking the first time the city hosted the event.The game, played at Lucas Oil Stadium, saw the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots 21-17.Madonna headlined the halftime show, which also featured guest appearances by LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A.,and CeeLo Green.

The Super Bowl Host Committee, led by Alison Melangton (the first woman to have this position in NFL history), developed 46 legacy projects focused on benefiting all of Indiana. The Komen Tissue Bank was highlighted as one of those legacy proposals. The idea of Indy's Super Cure was developed, and on January 28
& 29, 2012, the KTB collected healthy breast tissue from 660 women.

And now, we are working to help history repeat itself!

This summer, the Komen Tissue Bank (KTB), in collaboration with the WNBA All-Star Host Committee, will hold All-Star Cure, a two-day healthy breast tissue collection event to be held on July 12 & 13, 2025, at the IU Health Simon Cancer Center. The KTB collects and stores healthy breast tissue for breast cancer research.We invite women—particularly Black and Brown women of all ages, and women under 40 of any race or ethnicity—to help advance breast cancer research by donating healthy breast tissue to the KTB during this event.

Breast Cancer and Age/Race

A person’s gender, race, and/or ethnic heritage can affect how breast cancer develops and how it should be treated. Researchers are studying these differences so they can create treatments based on patients’ diverse needs. To date, most breast cancer research has resulted in treatments that best address breast cancers in older white women; these treatments work differently (and ofter not as well) for non-white women.

Any woman, young or not-so-young, of any race or ethnicity - can develop breast cancer, particularly women of color.

Your donation of healthy breast tissue is vital for advancing breast cancer research, especially for minority women who are often underrepresented. It helps scientists develop better treatments and prevention strategies, addressing health disparities and improving outcomes for all.

Black women with breast cancer are 40% more likely to die of the disease than white women. Black women have poorer survival rates than women from other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer (and the leading cause of cancer death)
among Latinas. Young Latinas and Black women are more likely to
develop triple negative breast cancer, a particularly aggressive type.

Women of Asian descent tend to be unaware of their breast cancer risk. The breast
cancer incidence rate of Asian women who immigrate to, or are born in, the United States escalates to rival that of White women, who have the highest risk.

The breast cancer incidence rate in women under 50 has risen faster than in women over 50 (about 1.4 percent each year between 2012–202 compared to about 1 percent each year). Currently, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women aged 20 to 49 in the United States.