TIMES HERALD The Village
Stony Brook • old Field • Strong’S neck • Setauket • eaSt Setauket • South Setauket • Poquot t March 12, 2015
Volume 40, No. 2
Historic firehouses exhibit at the PJVC
$1.00
A beautiful finish
also: Festival of One act Plays at Theatre Three, ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ at the SCPa
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Photos by Barbara Donlon, above, and greg Catalano
above, a $50,000 check is presented to the Stony Brook university cancer center, celebrating the efforts of last year’s Walk for Beauty. Below, runners cross the colorful finish line back in october, when a special new color splash feature was added to the annual event. By BarBara donlon
Guardians rescue two Setauket ducks Three-hour surgery saves life
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Stony Brook’s annual Walk for Beauty event took a giant step forward this week. Breast cancer researchers at Stony Brook University Hospital graciously received a $50,000 check last week, which they said would help them focus on the fight against cancer. The Ward Melville Heritage
Organization, which sponsored the event, presented the check to the doctors at the hospital March 4 as a result of the funds raised during the 21st annual Walk for Beauty in the fall. Dr. Yusuf Hannun, director of SBU Cancer Center, thanked WMHO for its long-term partnership and the community for their dedication. “As you know at Stony Brook,
as an academic medical center, we have an obligation to conduct research into cancer,” Hannun said. “If we don’t do it, no one else will do it. It’s as simple as that.” And to show that the money raised from last year’s walk went to good use, both a cancer researcher and doctor from the center delivered presentations on their areas of expertise: Chiara Luberto, research associate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, briefed those in attendance on metastatic breast cancer — a subject she has spent months working on; and Dr. Jules Cohen, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, spoke about “chemo brain,” which some women face after undergoing chemotherapy. Research shows, Cohen said, that it may be linked to inflammation in the brain and it interferes with cognitive skills and memory. Hannun said these types of research projects are important for the hospital because most of them aren’t big enough for funding from larger organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. He said the donated money helps get these kinds of smaller research projects off the ground and where they need to
be, and possibly even contend for more funding in the future. “If we don’t do research today, we won’t have discoveries tomorrow — and medicine will not change later,” Hannun said. There were nearly 230 runners and more than 500 color splashers, said Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket), a member of the committee helping to organize the annual event, making the 2014 event an incredible success. Residents also hit the pavement for a separate race, the Hercules on the Harbor 10K, which toured some of the Stony Brook area’s most coveted outdoor gems. The annual event has already raised more than $1 million for cancer research. Attendees celebrating the check presentation included Walk for Beauty committee members and WMHO President Gloria Rocchio, Hahn and Carol Simco of the Stony Brook Fire Department. Rocchio said she enjoys meeting the researchers in the aftermath of the Walk for Beauty event and seeing what kind of progress the event helps achieve. “What feels good is to see the results and projects moving forward,” Rocchio said.