Miller chosen for cancer research fellowship at Gundersen

Katie Miller ’15 had never heard of hairy cell leukemia before this summer. But after several weeks working at Gundersen Medical Foundation’s Kabara Cancer Research Institute in La Crosse, Wis., Miller is not only familiar with the rare form of cancer, she is hoping her research will help to create a new therapeutic target for the disease.

The biology major from Rochester, Minn., is the second Saint Mary’s University Fellow at Gundersen. The academic collaboration was brought about through 1958 alumnus Dr. Jon Kabara and his wife Betty, founders of the Kabara Cancer Research Institute. Katie is continuing a project started in the early 2000s by noted Gundersen cancer researcher Dr. Carl Simon Shelley that involves hairy cell leukemia (HCL), a rare, slow-growing cancer of the blood.