Main university building turned pink

On Monday evening of this week, Lund University’s main building was turned pink. The University wants to highlight the Swedish Breast Cancer Foundation and the Swedish Cancer Society’s October campaign to get more people to donate money to breast cancer research.

The idea came from the White House in Washington, which will be lit up in pink one night in October. The aim is to honour all those who have lost the fight against breast cancer and the researchers who are working to find new ways to overcome the disease. October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month with a special focus on increasing awareness of the disease and raising money for research.

“There is a ‘White House’ in Washington and a ‘White House’ in Lund in the form of Universitetshuset (the main university building). This gave us the idea that we could also help to raise awareness of the importance of intensive research to tackle breast cancer, a major disease that affects many people”, says Vice-Chancellor Per Eriksson.

Together with the National Property Board, Lund University therefore decided to light up the main university building pink. The building will be pink for the remainder of October.

“A lot of research is conducted on breast cancer, not least at Lund University. However, more resources are needed and if we can help to raise awareness and get more people to donate money to breast cancer research then we will be very pleased”, says Per Eriksson.

Lund University works with breast cancer research all the way from the development of technical equipment and genetics for early diagnosis and personalised treatment to care of patients and relatives.

One of the many research projects carried out at the Faculty of Medicine is one of the world’s first and largest studies of the significance of genes in breast cancer, in which all the approximately 22 000 genes in a breast cancer cell are being mapped. It is hoped that it will become possible to develop personalised treatments.

Another research team will soon be in a position to start clinical trials of the protein Wnt5a, which inhibits metastasis in breast and colon cancer.

Research is also underway on methods that could lead to fewer preventive operations and on how to predict which patients are at increased risk of stopping their cancer treatment too early.
Another major project is Create Health, which is developing technology to identify in advance which patients are at risk of metastasis.

BioCARE is a joint project between Lund University and the University of Gothenburg, funded by Swedish Government strategic investments, which carries out research on breast cancer, among others. One of the aims is to develop new targeted methods for the treatment of cancer.
For more information, please contact Vice-Chancellor Per Eriksson, tel. +46 46 222 70 01, mobile: +46 708 24 71 06, rektor@rektor.lu.se

More about breast cancer

Every year, around 7 000 women in Sweden are diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite progress in research and treatment, 1 500 women die every year of breast cancer in Sweden.
There are two organisations in Sweden that work with the Pink Ribbon – the Swedish Cancer Society and BRO, the Swedish Breast Cancer Association. BRO administers the Swedish Breast Cancer Foundation. Those who wish to contribute to the campaign can purchase the branded pink products in shops around the country or make a donation to BRO using Plusgiro 90 05 91-9 or Bankgiro 900-5919 or to the Swedish Cancer Society using Plusgiro 90 19 86-0 or Bankgiro 901-9514.