Since the 1990s, Lisa Cannon-Albright has been one of the nation’s leading genetic epidemiologists, part of the team that identified the inherited BRCA1 gene mutations that increase the risk of breast cancer.

In 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me,” she says of her diagnosis. “I thought I was going to die—that everything I did would be for the last time.”

Throughout her treatment at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI), Lisa was on the receiving end of research, benefiting from discoveries made years ago in chemotherapy and radiation. As a patient, she became the focus of a multidisciplinary team of cancer specialists, all working to provide care to best suit her needs. She also participated in a clinical trial of a new interleukin-2 protocol—14 days of continuous infusion after her course of chemotherapy was complete—to test the drug’s ability to enhance part of the body’s immune defense system, “natural killer cells” that circulate in the blood and infiltrate the sites of early tumors.

“Participating gave me a really positive feeling,” says Lisa. “I could visualize my immune system finding tumor cells and getting rid of them. Every time I saw the clinical trial coordinator, I’d greet her with ‘Natural killer cells!’”

Lisa carries her commitment to cancer research beyond her work and personal life, volunteering for HCI’s fundraising efforts. She ran in the 2004 and 2005 Salt Lake City Marathon 5K events as a member of the Hometown Heroes program. In 2005, Hometown Heroes teams raised $198,000 for HCI’s mission of research, education, and patient care.

Lisa is just one extraordinary example among thousands of patients who come to HCI each year, discovering their own reasons to hope.