Dr. Joyce Ohm is Roswell Park’s Chair of Genetics and Genomics. She also bikes across the state to raise money for cancer research every summer.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — As chair of Cancer Genetics and Genomics at Roswell Park, Dr. Joyce Ohm has dedicated her career to researching cancer.
“I describe our job as we’re detectives,” she said. “Especially in the genetics department, what we’re looking for is really interesting ways to target tumors. We’re looking for vulnerabilities. We’re looking for that one thing that we can target and go in and get a cancer cell and leave all of your normal cells alone.”
Dr. Ohm was drawn to this career from a young age. She lost her mother to clear cell sarcoma when she was just 10 years old.
She now studies that rare form of cancer in her lab.
“When you’re ten you don’t know. It’s just mom, and just your family,” she said. “Later on, you kind of figure out that there’s something you have to do to work through some of this, so this is my therapy. Therapy would have been cheaper, but I spend time in the research lab and really feel like I get to make a difference now.”
Another way Dr. Ohm makes a difference is by biking across the state in the Empire State Ride to End Cancer each summer.
“The Empire State Ride last year was 560 miles from New York City to Niagara Falls,” she said. “It’s an amazing event. We start on Staten Island, we take the Staten Island Ferry across to Manhattan. We ride through Manhattan and then turn up towards Albany, and it’s some of the most beautiful scenic country in New York State and you get to see it by bike. We average about 80 miles a day, with our longest day being a century ride or 100 miles on day…
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