Famous racing family raising awareness of new breast cancer research

INDIANAPOLIS — A famous racing family is getting help from a former television news correspondent in spreading the word about new breast cancer research.

Norma Lawrence Unser, the wife of racing legend Al Unser Jr., and Liz Childers, a pair of identical twins, recently teamed up with Kristen Dahlgren, the founder and chief executive officer of Cancer Vaccine Coalition and a former news correspondent, to raise awareness about the research.

The three individuals are speaking on the research of immune-based approaches to cancer treatment through clinical trials. Dahlgren created the breast cancer research organization after she was diagnosed in 2019.

“It’s really an incredible time where we have the combination of artificial intelligence, we understand the immune system better, we know what parts of cancer can be targeted,” Dahlgren said. “All of those things coming together in this moment mean we actually have a chance to eliminate disease and to prevent it from coming back. So, you know, I see in five-to-10 years a world where cancer might just be a chronic disease. We’re not seeing deaths from cancer. Imagine that.”

Unser and Childers both have a personal connection to the fight. Their mother died from breast cancer in 2004.