Turning grief into hope: Mike Kirby makes $1 million donation to fight triple-negative breast cancer
The especially aggressive type has the lowest survival rate of all breast cancers
October 29, 2024
“Suzette was a very vibrant, active member of the community and the response was incredible,” says her husband, Mike Kirby. “We never imagined that the initial fund would be so big — we were stunned by everyone’s generosity.”
Credit: Mike Kirby
Orange, Calif. — When Mike Kirby’s wife, Suzette, passed away at the age of 52, the family requested donations to support UC Irvine breast cancer research in lieu of flowers. Little did they know that decision would spark more than a decade of funding for potentially lifesaving scientific discoveries.
“Suzette was a very vibrant, active member of the community and the response was incredible,” says Kirby. “We never imagined that the initial fund would be so big — we were stunned by everyone’s generosity.”
Since then, Kirby has quietly supported promising research to fight triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an especially aggressive, hard-to-treat disease that accounts for 10% to 15% of all breast cancers and has the lowest survival rate. Inspired by initial findings by a pair of UC Irvine researchers, the Kirby family is now making a $1 million philanthropic gift to support their ongoing efforts to cure this intractable disease.
“There’s been so much progress on fighting other types of cancer, but TNBC tends to get left behind,” says Kirby. “Fortunately, there’s fertile ground for finding better treatments, and if these researchers can make headway, they can save an awful lot of lives.”
The Suzette Kirby Breast Cancer Research Fund has supported research by Devon Lawson, PhD, associate professor of physiology and biophysics, and Kai Kessenbrock, PhD, associate professor of biological chemistry. The two researchers are at the forefront of innovation in breast cancer research. Both helped produce the first comprehensive map of every cell in the human breast, Human Breast Cell Atlas, published in the journal Nature in 2023, an unprecedented resource helping scientists understand tissue changes that occur in cancer and other diseases of the breast. Lawson and Kessenbrock’s work involves targeting the immune system to beat TNBC. With the growing success of immunotherapy to treat a number of cancers, Kirby believes their research is in the “strike zone” for finding a cure. He recently redoubled his support for up to four of their most promising projects.
One Kessenbrock project targets cells that suppress the immune system in cancerous tumors. In a 2020 study published in the journal Science Immunology, Kessenbrock and his collaborators identified a specific protein produced by immunosuppressive myeloid cells. Now he is studying whether targeting that protein makes immunotherapy treatments more effective against TNBC.
“The more we can learn about these different cell populations, the more angles we will have for combination therapies that unleash the immune system against cancer,” Kessenbrock says. The research recently became even more personal for the molecular biologist: a close relative was diagnosed with TNBC.
Lawson’s current research targets cancer that has metastasized in the brain, where it’s usually fatal. In 2023, she published a study in Nature Cell Biology showing that the brain’s microglia cells activate tumor-killing agents. Now, she’s using a type of immunotherapy drug called CD40 agonists to stimulate microglia and dramatically shrink brain tumors.
“The initial findings were very promising, so we are following up in a more translational way, looking at pharmacologics to encourage the brain’s immune cells to attack the cancer cells in the brain to improve outcomes for metastasized cancer,” says Lawson.
Kirby’s funding provides a critical bridge, enabling the scientists to pursue these promising avenues while applying for major grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute. Even in the best-case scenario, it can take two years for federal research funding to be awarded. That lag creates “an exponential loss of research momentum,” says Kessenbrock. “In the meantime, this funding from the Kirby family is absolutely game-changing for us.”
Kirby, who has been tracking advances in TNBC since Suzette was first diagnosed, appreciates the possibility that Lawson and Kessenbrock may be on the brink of major breakthroughs. This kind of high-risk, high-reward research appeals to him.
“I bring a can-do attitude to everything,” says Kirby. As the founder and chairman of Green Street Advisors, a real estate analysis and research firm, he took the company from a two-person startup to a national leader with 500 employees. His business-oriented mindset led him to ask the researchers to share quarterly progress reports — an unusual request in science. But the married couple, who have built a good relationship with Kirby over the years, embrace the concept as a way to push their own productivity and efficiency.
“Devon and Kai are doing wonderful work, devoting themselves to pure research,” says Kirby. “I find that to be admirable. I want to do whatever I can to help them. If this research works, then very few women will be dying from TNCB in the future.”
About UCI Health
UCI Health, one of California’s largest academic health systems, is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. The system comprises its main campus UCI Medical Center, a 459-bed, acute care hospital in Orange, Calif., four hospitals and affiliated physicians of the UCI Health Community Network in Orange and Los Angeles counties and ambulatory care centers across the region. Recognized as a Top Hospital by The Leapfrog Group, UCI Medical Center provides tertiary and quaternary care and is home to Orange County’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, gold level 1 geriatric emergency department and regional burn center. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
