Susan G. Komen founder in Raleigh, talks with WRAL

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure raises millions each year in the fight against breast cancer, and the woman who started it all was in Raleigh on Friday.

Posted 6:05 p.m. Apr 23, 2010 — Updated 1:37 p.m. Oct 18, 2011

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure raises millions each year in the fight against breast cancer, and the woman who started it all was in Raleigh on Friday.

Nancy Brinker started the organization in memory of her sister, Susan Komen, who died from breast cancer in 1980 at the age of 36.

The organization has raised more than $1.5 billion for breast cancer research. Team WRAL is participating in the race this year on June 12 and welcomes viewers to join the team.

Brinker said she knows most everyone who runs or walks knows someone who has been impacted by breast cancer.

“The word 'cure' may eventually mean prevention, preventing the disease altogether, which we hope happens," she said. "Yes, I see a time when that will happen.”

Before the Komen Foundation, there was research, yet the awareness was different, she said.

“I hope what we’ve been able to do is flower the entire field with the best kind of scientists, the best thoughts,” Brinker said. “Everything that you see, every advance that has been made in the treatment and the science of breast cancer, has been funded somewhere in its history by a Susan G. Komen grant.”

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