Hope in action: How Bee Brave fuels breast cancer breakthroughs at VAI
January 7, 2025
Each year, more than 300,000 women in the U.S. receive the same harrowing news:
You have breast cancer.
These four words become etched in time, their sharp edges carving themselves into painful memories. A single sentence represents a turning point, a clear line separating “before” and “after” their diagnosis.
For members of Bee Brave, a local group of passionate advocates who raise funds for breast cancer research at Van Andel Institute, the words are a call to action.
“Our Bee Brave community is comprised of people who have been directly impacted by this insidious disease, as well as their friends and family,” said Bee Brave Race Director Chris Bartnick. “To them, and to us, this is personal.”
Bee Brave is a powerhouse of hope in action. Since 2016, this grassroots team has raised nearly $900,000 to fuel breast cancer research at VAI led by Dr. Matt Steensma and Dr. Carrie Graveel. These funds supercharge science by enabling the Steensma Lab to tackle big questions in breast cancer, secure state-of-the-art equipment and support the expert staff required to take on projects.
“The Bee Brave team is incredible,” Graveel said. “The funds they raise help us get important work off the ground, which in turn reveals insights that may help us better prevent, detect and treat breast cancer.”
A powerful combination
Pat Ringnalda had enough.
After supporting a dear friend through a breast cancer diagnosis and a subsequent relapse, she knew she had to do something. Too many women were experiencing the mental and physical toll wrought by breast cancer. Ringnalda wanted to help.
This determination to make a difference gave rise to Bee Brave, which was founded in 2008 with a national focus and shifted to supporting local research seven years ago. Ringnalda teamed up with her friend Chris Bartnick to assemble a community of people, each one touched in some way by breast cancer. Little did they know at the time that they were creating more than a way to raise funds to support research — they were creating a movement.
“Making the switch to partner with Van Andel Institute was a no-brainer,” Ringnalda said. “Not only does their research impact us locally, but they also use 100% of the funds we raise for research!”
Bee Brave now hosts several events throughout the year, with their annual 5K in October drawing the biggest crowd. In 2024, more than 680 people ran, jogged and walked toward a better future. They brought in more than $158,000 through their events last year, elevating the total amount raised to support research at VAI to $858,0000.
Bee Brave’s relationship with VAI began seven years ago after Ringnalda and Bartnick reached out to VAI’s grassroots fundraising team, Purple Community. They wanted to know if anyone at VAI was researching breast cancer.
The answer was yes.
The first meeting between Ringnalda, Bartnick, Steensma and Graveel was the start of a close-knit relationship, one that would grow over the years.
“When we first met, we realized we were basically neighbors. My son and Chris Bartnick’s son were in the same robotics program,” Graveel recalled. “We all are connected in so many ways. While we focused on research, Bee Brave created a home for people who survived breast cancer. They collectively empowered people.”
Over the years, Bee Brave’s support has enabled the Steensma Lab to address important questions and gather the critical early data required to earn additional grant funding to scale up projects. The funds also have supported vital equipment purchases, such as a specialized microscope, and funded early career scientists in the lab.
In turn, Steensma Lab members are a fixture at Bee Brave events such as the Bee Brave 5K and Bee Brave Puzzle Competition. Bee Brave members also visit the Institute each year to hear about the latest advances directly from Steensma, Graveel and the scientists in their lab.
“From the beginning, we knew we wanted our money to go directly to breast cancer research. Partnering with Matt and Carrie has been such a huge blessing for us — it isn’t just about where we send our money, we are honored to call them friends,” Ringnalda said. “Every single day is another step toward a new discovery, thanks to the research done in the Steensma Lab.”
Asking the big questions
When Dr. Rae House joined the Steensma Lab as a graduate student in 2019, she wanted to tackle a specific problem: how do cancer cells hijack metabolism to fuel their growth?
It’s a big question, one with far-reaching implications for understanding — and better treating — a key hallmark of cancer. Cancer cells steal resources from healthy cells to feed their endless appetites for energy. What isn’t clear, however, is exactly how malignant cells bypass the body’s immune system and built-in quality control processes.
The Steensma Lab was a perfect fit for House, in part because of its focus on a gene called NF1. Known as a tumor suppressor gene, NF1 stops cells from growing or replicating too quickly — a defining feature of cancer.
Because this gene regulates cell growth, errors in NF1 can have devastating and wide-ranging effects. In some people, NF1 mutations cause a rare disease called neurofibromatosis type 1, which causes benign tumors to grow on the nerves and skin. People with neurofibromatosis have a significantly increased risk for developing breast cancer.
Other mutations in NF1 switch off critical safeguards that allow cancer cells to grow and spread. In fact, errors in and deletions of NF1 are among the most common genetic contributors to breast cancer.
“Most people have heard of the BRCA gene and how it affects breast cancer risk, but far fewer people are aware of the NF1 gene,” House said. “We know that NF1 influences cancer development, but the ways NF1 does so are less clear. Based on previous research, I hypothesized that metabolism could be playing an important role.”
Thanks to funding from Bee Brave, House got to work conducting experiments to illuminate the relationship between NF1 and cell metabolism in breast cancer. The Steensma Lab would go on to team up with the lab of Dr. Evan Lien, an assistant professor at VAI and an expert in cancer metabolism. Together, they found that damage to NF1 derails the normal metabolic balance in breast cancer cells, allowing NF1-altered cells to proliferate faster.1,3 Problems with NF1 also disrupt important cellular communication channels, which are vital for healthy function.
The findings were published in spring 2024 and highlight NF1 and cancer cell metabolism as potential targets for new cancer therapies. Now graduated with her Ph.D., House is continuing her research as a Cancer Epigenetics Training Program postdoctoral fellow in Lien’s lab.3
“Bee Brave’s support enabled me to ask big questions, dig deeper and be creative. They absolutely made this discovery possible,” House said. “As a scientist, being able to meet with Bee Brave members and hear their stories is both inspiring and encouraging. Every conversation with them is an important reminder of what is at stake.”
Related: Learn more about Bee Brave ➔
Champions for a cure
When asked to summarize how Bee Brave’s support has fueled breakthroughs, Graveel smiled.
“It’s a long list,” she said. “The funds they raised have seeded so many projects.”
In addition to House’s research, Bee Brave supports work by Dr. Elizabeth Tovar, a research scientist in the Steensma Lab. Tovar studies endocrine resistance in breast cancer, which occurs when cancer cells become resistant to hormone-based treatments.
About 75% of women with breast cancer have estrogen receptor positive breast cancer and are eligible for endocrine treatment. Unfortunately, one-third will go on to become resistant to these important front-line therapies.2 Tovar is working to figure out why this resistance happens with the goal of predicting and preventing it.
But that’s not all. Bee Brave funds enabled the Steensma Lab to develop a powerful new hereditary model of breast cancer that faithfully recreates how certain breast cancers arise and progress. Modeling cancer is a crucial part of studying all the factors that affect risk and treatment response. Abigail Godec, a Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and Van Andel Institute Graduate School M.D./Ph.D. student doing her thesis research in the Steensma Lab, uses this model to study how genetics and environmental factors impact breast cancer risk in young women who have had children.
In addition, the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs funded two research grants related to early research projects supported by Bee Brave. The first grant bolsters research into the role NF1 plays in breast tissue development, cancer risk and endocrine resistance. The second grant investigates the interaction of NF1 and RAS, a cellular communication network that often is disrupted in cancer.4
Understanding how and why errors in these important genes and pathways occur is a major focus for scientists. If you fix the mutation or address the problems they cause, you can in theory treat the underlying cause of the cancer.
“We’re so fortunate to have the support of such a wonderful, dedicated and determined group,” Steensma said. “For more than seven years, Bee Brave has partnered with us to take on breast cancer. We are immeasurably grateful.”
Bee Brave’s impact is poised to grow. The group has an ambitious plan to host more events, raise more funds in support of research and bring together more people committed to a brighter future. Through it all, their commitment and inspiration remain the same.
“The face of breast cancer is not abstract to me — it’s a well-defined image of friends I’ve watched battle and those that I’ve sat with as they’ve received the heart-wrenching diagnosis. I’ve seen the long-term damage it causes and the trauma it leaves behind,” Bartnick said. “I’ve also seen beautiful souls living and thriving for years despite a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, and I know that is only possible because of new treatments that have been developed. Research gives them hope and time until we finally find the cures.”
References
1 House RJ, Tovar EA, Redlon LN, Essenburg CJ, Dischinger PS, Ellis AE, Beddows I, Sheldon RD, Lien EC, Graveel CR, Steensma MR. 2024. NF1 deficiency drives metabolic reprogramming in ER+ breast cancer. Mol Metab 80:101876.
2 Pan H, Gray R, Braybrooke J, Davis C, Taylor C, McGale P, Peto R, Pritchard KI, Bergh J, Dowsett M, Hayes DF. 2017. 20-year risks of breast-cancer recurrence after stopping endocrine therapy at 5 years. New Eng J Med 377:1836–1846.
Funding Acknowledgements
3 Dr. House’s study was supported by Van Andel Institute; NF Michigan; and Bee Brave. As part of the Cancer Epigenetics Training Program, House is supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award no. T32CA251066 (P. Jones). This content solely is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or other funding sources.
4 The work was supported by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs endorsed by the Department of Defense, in the amount of ($1,187,500), through the (NFRP) under Award No. (W81XWH-21-1-0224 and W81XWH-21-1-0759). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs or the Department of Defense.