Cancer Research

The Maryland women's basketball team will play fellow national power Connecticut next season for the first time in program history. The teams will meet in the Jimmy V Women's Classic on Dec. 3, ESPN and The V Foundation for Cancer Research announced Tuesday. The 11th-annual game will take place at one of UConn's two playing facilities — the XL Center in Hartford or Gampel Pavilion in Storrs — and will be shown on ESPN2. The event will fall on the night before the men's Jimmy V Classic in New York.

Thanks for calling attention to the fact that now is the time for our elected leaders to rise above political self-interest and make the difficult choices that are in our nation's best interest ("Supercommittee: Split the difference," Nov. 14). I agree that committee members must learn to compromise. But no matter which side of the aisle our elected officials are on, there is one thing that absolutely must not be compromised: Fighting cancer. Today, there are nearly 12 million cancer survivors.

David Berdan likes the Komen Maryland Race for the Cure so much, he'll do it twice Sunday, once as the two-time defending champion of the Hunt Valley event and later as a family man whose loved ones have suffered from breast cancer . Before the race, Berdan, 30, said: "If I win again, awesome, because then I'll be interviewed and can talk about the campaign to end this disease. " In fact, the science teacher and cross-county coach at Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills did win again, topping the men's division Sunday morning.

The story has been told and retold many times in the 50 years since the meeting took place. Gary Jobson was growing up on the Jersey Shore and for his 11th birthday, he had been given a Penguin dinghy of his own to take out onto Barnegat Bay. "I'm not sure whether I liked sailing or didn't like sailing when I was even younger, it was something I did in the summer," Jobson recalled recently. "I got a new dinghy and I was coming in and I remember cleaning my boat out and this family comes along and starts asking me questions.

A Florida woman was so inspired by the care her beloved kitty got at a California vet school that she left the institution $7.6 million in her cat's name. According to the Sacramento Bee , years ago Maxine Adler brought her kitty, Du Bee, to the University of California, Davis, to be treated for cancer. The kitty died, as did Adler, a few years later by a hit-and-run driver. But before her death, the paper reports, Adler had made sure her will included $7.6 for the university's school of veterninary medicine.

Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center announced Monday that it has established a Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine with a $30 million gift from the Richmond, Va.-based Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research. The money will further Hopkins' research into technologies that can pinpoint genetic characteristics of a patient's cancer so therapies can be tailor-made. "Treatment fine-tuned to a patient's genetic makeup is the future of cancer medicine," said Ronald J. Daniels, president of the Johns Hopkins University.

After less than three hours of deliberation Wednesday, a Baltimore jury found John Alexander Wagner guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery in the stabbing of Johns Hopkins researcher Stephen Pitcairn, who was attacked last year as he talked to his mother on a cellphone while walking home from Penn Station. Wagner could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison at a hearing set for Oct. 21. His lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Gregory Fischer, said he plans to appeal the conviction.

As the chair for the eighth annual Ride for Life — an equestrian event benefiting the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center — Michele Wellman was tasked with a variety of responsibilities that kept the 32-year-old hopping as she tried to balance her full-time job with Northrop Grumman in Sykesville, her horse boarding company in Union Bridge, and her personal life. Days before this weekend's event, Wellman was already amazed at the experience … and willing to tackle it again.

A Female Jockey Challenge is being added to the second-year partnership between Pimlico Race Course and the Maryland affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast-cancer fundraising and awareness initiative held May 20 on Black-Eyed Susan Day. The Challenge will feature six of the world's top women's jockeys competing in four races with points awarded based upon their finish. The main focus of the day is the 87th running of the $250,000 Grade II Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a race that will be televised on Versus.

When Grace Mercer initiated a Pink Out game for her Annapolis Area Christian School basketball program two years ago, she was pleased with the $780 raised that night for breast cancer research. Last winter, after Mercer graduated, her teammates wanted to keep the Pink Out going, so they teamed with nearby Key School to try to raise a little bit more than that. Instead, they raised a whole lot more. The schools, two of the smallest in the area, they brought in more than $12,000.