How Zeta Tau Alpha Is Accelerating Lifesaving Prevention Research

After donating $500,000 to BCRF over two years, the national women’s fraternity doubled down to make more of an impact with a $1.25 million commitment

Breast cancer is deeply personal to the tens of thousands of women who call themselves Zeta Tau Alpha (ZTA) sisters, says Marlene Dunbar Conrad, the ZTA Foundation’s vice president of philanthropy.

“Every one of our members knows someone who has been personally affected by breast cancer—moms, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, friends. The one in eight statistic is a very real fact to our sisters,” she said.

That’s why for more than 30 years, breast cancer education, early detection, and awareness has been ZTA’s philanthropic focus. Sisters have finished countless walks, handed out more than 25 million pink ribbons, and more over the last three decades.

Now, ZTA and its tens of thousands of members, are making an even bigger impact: They’re supporting lifesaving breast cancer research through BCRF.

In 2022, to mark the 30^th year of ZTA’s philanthropic focus on breast cancer, the organization’s foundation made a two-year $500,000 commitment to BCRF to support lifesaving research.

ZTA’s generous gift supported BCRF investigators Drs. Regina Barzilay and Adam Yala, who previously developed an artificial intelligence (AI)–based risk assessment model called MIRAI with Dr. Constance Lehman, also a BCRF-funded researcher, that analyzes mammogram imaging to predict a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer in the next five years. MIRAI has been covered extensively in the news and Drs. Barzilay and Yala are currently testing it in a large prospective trial featuring a group of racially and socio-economically diverse patients with ZTA’s support. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are incredibly promising technologies particularly in screening, risk prediction, and diagnosis.

“We were drawn to research that was not only spearheaded by a woman, but that was using artificial intelligence as a predictive indicator,” Conrad said. “Now AI is all the buzz, but in spring of 2022, AI was just becoming more widely recognized to most of the U.S. as the future of research and technology. It felt exciting, and still does, to be on the cutting edge of that.”

Conrad says that after the organization announced its initial $500,000 donation to BCRF, countless members reached out to express their excitement and appreciation that their donations were funding lifesaving research. So, to mark 125 years since ZTA’s founding in 1898 in October 2023, the organization committed $1.25 million over two years (BCRF’s fiscal years 2024 and 2025).

“Our foundation board listened to our members and really took this feedback to heart. Service and philanthropy have been a key value of our organization since the earliest days and committing $1.25 million for the next two years felt appropriate as we head into the next 125 years of ZTA,” she said.

With this incredible gift, ZTA will continue supporting Drs. Barzilay and Yala, as well as BCRF investigator Dr. Graham Colditz and additional prevention research. Dr. Colditz’s current research focuses on understanding how early-life behaviors influence future breast cancer risk to refine risk assessment models doctors use to determine things like when a patient should start breast cancer screening.

With BCRF support, Dr. Colditz previously developed the Rosner-Colditz risk assessment model, which was notable for including breast cancer risk factors that other models didn’t weigh. Among many notable findings over his career, he has published studies showing that a high-fiber diet during adolescences is associated with a lower breast cancer risk and that having a family history of breast cancer is associated with a higher risk of having dense breasts in premenopausal women.

ZTA revealed the $1.25 million grant at its annual convention in July, presenting a check to BCRF staffers before a standing ovation.

“It was incredibly special to announce the BCRF funding,” Conrad said. “Our members know the key to eradicating this disease is through research, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation is the recognized leader in that research. ZTA is grateful to be able to provide funding we know is making a difference.”