Dana Brantley-Sieders - Talking to My Tatas: All You Need to Know from a Breast Cancer Researcher and Survivor

Dr. Dana M. Brantley-Sieders is an academic researcher who has worked at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for twenty years and counting. She studies molecular mechanisms that regulate breast-tumor cell growth, angiogenesis, and metastatic spread, working to identify new drug targets and to target conventionally undruggable targets with nanoparticle- and nanocarrier-delivered siRNA. Over her career, shes contributed to more than fifty peer-reviewed studies. She has worked with Susan G. Komen for the Cures Central Tennessee Affiliate to identify and target resource allocation over the affiliate area to meet the diverse needs of rural and urban populations, and she regularly volunteers her time to local schools, speaking about science. Since her diagnosis with breast cancer in 2018, she has become an advocate for breast cancer patients and survivors as well as an advocate for science. On her blog, talkingtatas.com, she regularly covers breast cancer, cancer biology, scientific advances in the field of breast cancer, and beyond, shares personal stories, and debunks pseudoscience scams. In addition to maintaining a career in biomedical research, shes the mother of two children and three fur-children and spends her spare time writing fiction under the name D. B. Sieders, gardening, and flying with her personal pilot/husband.

Many amazing people helped me bring this book to life, including an army of health-care professionals and a community of family, friends, and survivors whove helped me not only survive my adventure with breast cancer but also thrive in the wake of it. Thank you to Drs. Patricia Tepper, Angie Larson, Ingrid Meszoely, Galen Perdikis, Brent Rexer, Melinda Sanders, and Bapsi Chak Chakravarthy and to their teams of anesthesiologists, nurses, fellows, residents, technicians, and staff. You saved my life and made me whole, and most of you have seen my boobs in all of their iterations.

In addition to saving my life, the amazing and wonderful Drs. Meszoely, Perdikis, and Rexer, along with Dr. Ben Ho Park, mentor and incredible human being, answered about a million questions (each), fact-checked and proofed chapters with clinical information, and helped me out tremendously with this project. Special thanks to Dr. Jin Chen, my mentor, longtime collaborator, and dear friend, for fact-checking chapters on tumor immunology. Any mistakes in those chapters are mine, not theirs. Thanks also to Dr. David Vaught for his comments and suggestions.

Thank you to my incredible literary agent, Barbara Collins-Rosenberg. She believed in the proposal and project and worked tirelessly to make sure it found the right home. Thank you to my wonderful editor, Suzanne Staszak-Silva, for her guidance. She made this book shine! Thank you also to all of the amazing people at Rowman & Littlefield for bringing this book to readersspecifically, my production editor, Elaine McGarraugh, assistant editor Deni Remsberg, and copy editor Deborah F. Justice. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Alice Sullivan, who helped me craft the book proposal that shaped this book, landed my agent, and ultimately got me the book deal.

No one has your back like survivor sisters (and brothers). I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Pam Jasper, Linda Horton, Janet Piper, Tanisha Jones, Sue Daugherty Draughn, Cynthia DAlba, Betsy Gray, Danille van Zijl, Em Shotwell, Karen Pugh, Lisa Turpin Stephens, Lisa Strunk Quig, Lynn Cahoon, Mary Walters, Deb Harrison Kuhns, Lillian Boeskool, Ronei Harden-Moroney, Hollye Salazar Cross, J. C., Gerry Milligan, Paul Bushdid, and many more who have touched my life and shared their cancer stories with me. Thanks to my hero/mom, Carol McNeil Brantley, who is also a breast cancer survivor. I acknowledge and thank those in the great beyond, like my cousinwho was more like a sisterSherri Killian and my uncle Jack Brantley, whose spirits live on in our hearts and minds. Shout-out to survivor friends in cyberspace on Facebook pages, like Breast Cancer Straight Talk and Finding Humor After Breast Cancer. These amazing people have kept me going, lifted me out of fogs and funk, talked me off ledges, and shared laughs, love, and secrets only cancer survivors know. I am forever grateful.

Shout-out to the wonderful mentors and collaborators Ive been lucky enough to work with over the years in the laboratory, including Drs. Michael Torres, Terry Bunde, Robert Naylor, Lynnette Sievert, Paul Threadgill, Lynn Matrisian, Rebecca Cook, Daniel Medina, Ambra Pozzi, Pampee Young, Joey Barnett, Julie Rhoades, James Thomas, Leslie Crofford, Ann Richmond, Maureen Gannon, Mark de Caestecker, and Ben Ho Park, Craig Duvall, Jane Wu, Nikki Cheng, Wei Bin Fang, Rachelle Johnson, Shan Wang, Deanna Edwards, Justin Balko, and Gavin Bennett. These people have made me the scientist I am today, and many of them have kept me going during and after my breast cancer diagnosis. I am so grateful for you all.

Ive been fortunate enough to mentor or comentor many talented and dedicated research assistants, graduate and medical students, and postdoctoral fellows over the years. These incredible physicians and scientists (or soon-to-be physicians and scientists) include Drs. Justin Caughron, Charlene Dunaway Altamirano, Krishna Sarma, David Vaught, Meghana Rao, Victoria Youngblood, Kalin Wilson, Debra Walter, Meghan Morrison-Joly, Thomas Werfel, Meredith Jackson, Samantha Sarett, Ella Hoogenboezem, Shrusti Patel, Verra Ngwa, and Eileen Shiuan. Mentorship is one of the most rewarding parts of my work in academics, and I thank each of you for the privilege and trust you put in me. Know that Im forever proud of you.

I am grateful to my family, the people who are my reason for being and who love me unconditionally. I thank my husband, Patrick Sieders, for being my champion, best friend, and partner. When I told him I had cancer, he declared himself captain of Team Dana Beats Cancer and has been the most supportive and loving spouse. He really took that whole in-sickness-and-in-health part of the wedding vows seriously even though he got more than he bargained for. Im a lucky woman. My children, Anastacia and Jason, the incredible people I birthed who amaze me every single day, have helped me through my battle with cancer and give me a reason to keep fighting. I love you both to the ends of the universe and back. And I cannot forget my four-legged home nurses who healed and soothed me with purrs and lots of love.

Aesthetic flat closure, Not Putting On a Shirt, https://notputtingonashirt.org/

American Association for Cancer Research, https://www.aacr.org/

American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, https://www.aasect.org/

American Cancer Society, https://www.cancer.org/

Animal research

How Mouse Models Pave the Way to Precision Cancer Medicine, American Association for Cancer Research press office, AACR.org blog, September 21, 2019, https://www.aacr.org/blog/2017/09/21/how-mouse-models-pave-the-way-to-precision-cancer-medicine/.

Medical Benefits, Speaking of Research (website), accessed June 18, 2021, https://speakingofresearch.com/facts/medical-benefits/.

Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW), https://olaw.nih.gov/home.htm

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC), https://www.aalas.org/iacuc

American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS), https://www.aalas.org/

Antitumor immunity

The Intriguing History of Cancer Immunotherapy, Paula Dobosz and Tomasz Dziecitkowski in