Around 15,000 participants gathered at SDSU Mission Valley River Park on Oct. 19 to participate in the American Cancer Society’s 28th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. This event also marks 40 years since co-founding Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Among these participants were some of SDSU’s own breast cancer researchers.
This year, SDSU breast cancer researchers raised around $1,350 for their Making Strides team, which included members from multiple labs. Overall, San Diego’s Making Strides walk raised more than $600,000.
Funds from the walk go toward research and patient support services, according to ACS.
Researcher Teresa Monkkonen expressed how she was not only excited to show up for the community and participate in this year’s walk, but also excited about her lab’s upcoming research plans.
Monkkonen is a part of SDSU FUERTE/NIH FIRST, a program funded by the National Institute of Health that allowed SDSU to hire a cohort of faculty focused on eliminating chronic diseases, according to the group’s mission statement.
Monkkonen’s lab started at the beginning of 2024 and she’s working to put out the lab’s first research paper, which builds on some work she started prior to SDSU.
One of her lab’s main goals is to discover how “non-tumor cells change how tumor cells grow” and how these different cells “talk to each other,” according to Monkkonen. Some of these cells include immune cells, cells of the vasculature and connecting cells called fibroblasts.
Her lab wanted to look at how these different cells are influenced by existing drugs used to treat breast cancer.
“One of the things we found in this paper is that when you block this pathway that we’re looking at, we see some important changes for how tumors grow and have access to nutrients,” Monkkonen said.
This is one the main discoveries to be featured in the lab’s first published paper.
As part of the FUERTE initiative, she is also interested in expanding research to underrepresented communities.
“I’m developing my research program here, to be working toward understanding some of the biological basis for some of the disparities in cancer research outcomes, especially for Black women, Hispanic and Native women that have higher rates of this subtype of breast cancer called triple negative, that has usually worse outcomes for patients,” Monkkonen said. “It’s exciting that this is a growing area of research, but there’s still a lot to be done.”
Other labs and researchers at SDSU are also focused on breast cancer.
Tyler DeWitt, a postdoctoral researcher at SDSU and UCSD, joined the lab of SDSU associate professor Svasti Haricharan in 2023. This lab is working to bridge research equity gaps, driven by statistics such as the fact that Black women are around 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, according to ACS.
For DeWitt, “being at the walk was a surreal and inspiring experience.”
“I got to see first-hand the diversity of patients and families who are all affected by breast cancer
in one way or another and yet push forward with hope,” he said. “Moments like these are excellent motivators to realign my perspective and ignite continued drive to enact change through my research.”
Participating in community events is a motivator for Monkkonen as well. The process of researching takes long hours, has technical roadblocks and requires lots of troubleshooting.
Monkkonen explained how going to these events helps her see the big picture of things and be a positive motivator.
“I think that participating in these events where you have patient advocates, survivors and people that are in treatment is kind of one of those reminders about what we’re doing here,” Monkkonen said.
Monkkonen is in the process of collaborating with local organizations to create a symposium for breast cancer research. One that is inclusive to community members in addition to researchers and clinicians.
This spring, SDSU students will also be presenting their research from the different labs at the university’s S3 Symposium on Feb. 27, 2026, which has a special section for cancer research. Monkkonen feels that the SDSU cancer research community is at “an exciting time,” with more faculty involved and interdisciplinary research.
News updates from Monkkon and Haricharan’s labs can be found on their corresponding websites.
