Researcher puts her mind, money into cancer fight
Laura K. Shawver is a CEO who puts her heart and her own money where her talk leads.
The 51-year-old head of Phenomix, a biotechnology company in Sorrento Valley, believes she can help women fighting ovarian cancer. So a year ago, she started The Clearity Foundation, which through molecular profiling tries to guide patients – free of charge – to the most effective treatment for an illness that is difficult to treat.
Ovarian cancer is called “the silent killer,” because it usually causes nonspecific symptoms that delay detection and diagnosis. But with the ability to individually identify tumors that are unique to each patient, oncologists and researchers have greater chances of selecting the proper drugs to destroy the tumors, says Laura, a cancer researcher for 25 years.
The Davenport, Iowa, transplant says it stokes a lot of optimism in the ovarian cancer fight, and she'll do all she can to keep the fire high.
That includes tapping her own personal bank account for the $200,000 donation that started Clearity Foundation.
Laura lives in La Jolla and just helped Phenomix secure a $75 million deal to continue its work on Dutoglitin, a drug for type 2 diabetes.
She hobnobs on a first-name basis with heavy hitters in the medical field, not only in her daily 9-to-5 routine, but also in her efforts to keep her nonprofit foundation funded.
But Laura is far from rich. And she felt her donation.
“Oh yeah,” she chuckles. “It was bigger than a tithe.”
Her work in research and drug development, however, has never had much to do with money for her. So it is no wonder that her commitment to the ovarian cancer cause comes straight from the heart.
Laura, who holds both a bachelor of science degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, is an ovarian cancer surviver. She was diagnosed two years ago and largely because of what and who she knows, she got effective treatment early and remains cancer-free.
Now she feels an even stronger spiritual bond with all women battling the illness.
“The cancer was a gift,” she says. “It helped me to keep things in perspective and to see how to give back. Most other ovarian cancer patients don't have the chance to” medically help themselves and others.
“I can do that,” she says. “I'm trying to be a source of healing to others. I think that's what God wants me to do.”
Laura's personal experiences have confirmed for her that a sense of humor and high spirits are good medicine against any disease. So she is resolved to do the things she wants to do, despite illnesses.
She surfs. She roughhouses with her two mutts. And on the spur of the moment, she and her partner of three years, Tracy Macuga, an attorney, take trips unrelated to their work.
When Laura's hair fell out after her chemotherapy sessions began, she and a few good friends made a photo array of her in some of the tackiest wigs she could find.
And during recovery, recalling when she was a kid torn between science and music, Laura donned a Santa's cap and played with a band at a lively office holiday party.
Laura, whose grandmother, Edna, beat breast cancer and flourished until she died at 94, says she expects to be a thriving “old lady.”
“It's attitude,” Laura grins, shaking her head.
It was definitely attitude that led her into medical research in her college days when some extremely difficult academic subjects threatened to derail her dreams.
But she comes from a line of innovative hard workers who knew how to make do in hard times. Her grandfather, Don Shawver, invented the first bean thresher, and her father, Francis, came up with the first riding lawn mower. He and her mother, Lynda, always encouraged their daughter to compete in male-dominated fields.
Laura just couldn't let an academic challenge defeat her.
That continues to color her thinking today, especially in drug research and the cancer fight.
“In research, we get to learn things that nobody else knows – and they're things that may save people's lives,” Laura says. “That's incredible. I love doing that.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081130/news_lz1c30ozzie.html
