Since 2015, Longview has proudly served as a sponsor for the HudsonAlpha Foundation’s annual Tie the Ribbons event. This year’s event was held on Wednesday, November 8th in the Von Braun Center North Hall. The official press release can be found here.
Tie the Ribbons kicked off Information is Power, a collaboration with HudsonAlpha and Kailos Genetics, in 2015 with a year-long genetic cancer risk testing initiative. The screening, which is a test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer, was free for 30-year-old women and was available for anyone age 19 and older living in Madison, Limestone, Marshall, Jackson, and Morgan counties for a reduced price. Over 1400 people participated in the initiative and around 40 people discovered they had an increased risk of cancer.
In 2016, Phase II was announced. Redstone Federal Credit Union sponsored an expansion of the Information is Power initiative which ran through October 28, 2017. During that time, all women AND men in the aforementioned five counties who are 30 years of age could receive the genetic test at no charge! Anyone age 19 or older can also complete the test for $129.
Now, in 2017, Information is Power has been expanded again, thanks to a generous donation from Redstone Federal Credit Union. Free genetic cancer risk testing is now available to women and men, age 28 to 32 in Madison, Limestone, Jackson, Marshall, and Morgan Counties. The screening not only tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but for almost two dozen genes linked to breast, ovarian, prostate, and colorectal cancers.
For information about how to order your test, visit Kailos Genetics’ website.
In this video, you’ll meet some of the scientists working to find the next major cancer discovery and hear personal experiences from individuals about their battle.
From their website, here’s a brief synopsis about HudsonAlpha:
HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is a nonprofit institute dedicated to innovating in the field of genomic technology and sciences across a spectrum of biological challenges. Opened in 2008, its mission is four-fold: sparking scientific discoveries that can impact human health and well-being; bringing genomic medicine into clinical care; fostering life sciences entrepreneurship and business growth; and encouraging the creation of a genomics-literate workforce and society. The HudsonAlpha biotechnology campus consists of 152 acres nestled within Cummings Research Park, the nation’s second largest research park. Designed to be a hothouse of biotech economic development, HudsonAlpha’s state-of-the-art facilities co-locate nonprofit scientific researchers with entrepreneurs and educators. The relationships formed on the HudsonAlpha campus encourage collaborations that produce advances in medicine and agriculture. HudsonAlpha has become a national and international leader in genetics and genomics research and biotech education, and includes more than 30 diverse biotech companies on campus. To learn more about HudsonAlpha, visit hudsonalpha.org.
