Recipient Profiles
School of Biology/ovarian cancer research
John McDonald
Every year more than 27,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Approximately one-third of them will survive more than five years.
Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest cancers because there is no diagnostic test for it and no obvious symptoms until late in its development. As a result, about 75 percent of ovarian cancers are detected at Stages III and IV when it has spread throughout a woman’s abdomen. At those late stages, extensive surgery and chemotherapy are required, with no assurance of lasting success.
To help reverse this grim trend, alumna Deborah Nash Harris has made a seven-figure gift to support health and cancer research in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology, with first preference for ovarian cancer research. The School is a research partner with the Ovarian Cancer Institute, headed by John McDonald, professor and chair of the School of Biology, and Benedict Benigno, noted Atlanta gynecologic oncologist with the Southeastern Gynecologic Oncology Group.
“I have been so impressed with the people working in the Ovarian Cancer Institute,” said Harris, who graduated from Tech with an industrial engineering degree in 1978. “Their optimism in potentially finding a definitive blood test for ovarian cancer is contagious. The death rate in ovarian cancer is higher than many other cancers because it is so often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. The work they are doing could save many lives, and I want to help ensure they have the equipment, facilities and staff to work as fast as possible toward their goal.”
Harris’s commitment is a reflection of her longtime interest not only in the specific area of women’s health, but also in a broad range of health concerns.
“The important issue for me,” she explained, “is continuing to make progress with gene mapping and similar efforts so that research can be even more individually focused, not just on large classes like gender and race, but on sets of individuals with certain genes that can mark them as needing preventative treatments.”
A retired senior vice president with the Microsoft Corporation, Harris is a member of the Campaign Steering Committee and the Georgia Tech Foundation Board of Trustees, an emeritus member of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Advisory Board, and a former chair of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. She delivered the fall Commencement address in 1999. A longtime resident of Seattle, Harris is a passionate supporter of health care, the arts, and social services for the needy.
“When you have someone with the distinguished corporate and philanthropic background of Deborah Nash Harris make such a substantial investment in a research program, you know the work you’re doing has real value,” said McDonald. “While all of us in the School of Biology and the Ovarian Cancer Institute are eager to express our gratitude for her support, the real beneficiaries are the countless women whose lives will be saved as a result.”
