Spotlight

Summer 2007                                                                  Back to Spotlight home page

Alumni profile - Dr. Karen Kelly

An internationally known lung cancer expert was recently tapped as deputy director of the University of Kansas Cancer Center. Dr. Karen Kelly (BS 1978) is charged with leading the center toward a National Cancer Institute designation, and more importantly, continuing her research toward an early screening test to minimize the terrible efficiency of lung cancer, cancer’s number one killer.

Fairly remarkable, for a shy twin who landed at Emporia State without the confidence to pursue the sciences. Today, Kelly needs only one open-ended question to pour out her passion for cancer research, for lessening the human suffering it causes. She returned to KU, where she earned her medical degree, to pursue a vision for research and clinical care, having served most recently at the University of Colorado under the guidance of another world-renowned expert, Dr. Paul Bunn. Under his tutelage – from research, to patient care in the earliest to last stages of lung cancer – Kelly became singularly dedicated to the disease’s mysteries.

Fairly remarkable. Just how did she get to ESU and beyond? “I actually am an identical twin,” Kelly said. “I think we spent all of our grade school, junior high and high school together, and college was the perfect opportunity to be separated. She was a few minutes older, and I was always a little shy. She wanted to go to K-State, and I wanted something a little smaller.”

Kelly came to ESU with a teaching degree in mind. But she soon blossomed in the sciences, she said, by “having teachers you really could have a conversation with, one on one, outside the classroom. Knowing you could go to them and they could help you, it
bolstered my confidence.” Now, her sorority sisters at Chi Omega probably didn’t appreciate her unusual house pet – a dead cat from the lab, brought home to dissect as homework – but Kelly had quickly become very serious about school. She knew she could excel.“It was a great experience,” she said. “It gave me the confidence to really excel.”

Kelly says the field is poised to make great strides; momentum has built in the last five years with new drugs and a greater understanding of cancer at the molecular level. Her focus is on an effective early screening test, and it can’t come too soon. Of the 170,000 people diagnosed with lung cancer this year, just 1,000 will live, she said, because it can’t be detected until it’s too late. She does have the year 2009 circled on her calendar, when results from a trial study on early screening are complete. Kelly is eagerly awaiting those results as she stares down the deadliest cancer.

There’s no time now for being shy.

Last Updated April 17, 2008