Even though breast cancer research is comparatively well-funded, researchers still don't fully understand the many different ways metastatic cancer eventually evades currently available treatments. Just like a detective can learn much from studying the scene of a crime, researchers need to understand how breast cancer causes death to better understand how to stop it from doing so. One of the quickest ways for them to do that is through something called a tissue donation program.

Many of us are familiar with organ donation programs, but as metastatic patients, we are no longer eligible to donate our organs to another person. We can, however, donate tissue while we're still alive and tissues, including organs, soon after we die to aid thousands of future patients by helping researchers better understand the process of metastasis. Understanding the way cancer evades current treatments is key to developing more effective and more targeted treatments that let us live longer (and with a better quality of life) with the hope that one day we can stop MBC from prematurely ending our lives.

To learn more about tissue donation programs and why they are so essential to scientific discoveries, we talk with patient advocates, Stephanie Walker and Christine Hodgdon, along with breast cancer researcher Dr. Steffi Oesterreich and clinical coordinator Lori Miller about the topic of tissue donation in general and the specific program they're all involved with called Hope for Others at the University of Pittsburgh.