Project Purple Podcast

In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Tricia Hanna, a stenographer and ultrasound technologist whose own expertise played a pivotal role in her pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Tricia shares her incredible journey, which began in 2021 when she was demonstrating an ultrasound for a student and discovered uterine abnormalities. This led to additional monitoring and testing, during which her CA-19...

Meet Tina Lucci from Allentown, Pennsylvania. She is a special education teacher and a mother of two boys. Tina is a survivor of pancreatic cancer, having been diagnosed during the holiday season of 2019. She first felt unwell at work, so she went to the emergency room. Her diagnosis was a shock, as she had no family history of pancreatic cancer and was a mother of two young boys. Tina chose not t...

Meet Doug “Censor” Martin, from Long Island. Doug is well-known online for his gaming expertise. He has competed in esports championships and shares gaming content on YouTube and social media. Doug also discusses his interest in fitness and how he established himself as a gamer with a fitness lifestyle, which he felt made him stand out in the gaming community. By sharing his life online, Doug foun...

Meet Meg Barber. She is the head women’s basketball coach at NYU. Meg played basketball at NYU and has built an impressive coaching resume, having coached at D1 and D2 schools before returning to NYU. Meg has run the NYC marathon several times as a charity partner with Project Purple. Meg discusses her coaching philosophy and how her approach has fostered a strong team dynamic, which she calls a s...

Chris was an athlete through high school and college. He was a track and field runner and landed a fellowship and later a job at Sports Illustrated. Chris speaks to the experience he gained working at a media company. After some time at Sports Illustrated, he realized there was little coverage of what he was most passionate about, running and track and field. This is where his interest was and he...

Meet Sam Constantino of upstate New York. Sam and Dino have a long history together, both are very close with each other’s families. Like Dino, Sam also lost his father to pancreatic cancer. His father was diagnosed right around the time of Sam’s diagnosis. Sam lost his father only 18 days after his own diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Doctors said his father’s tumor was too large and at that stage...

Dino speaks with running coach Ryan Welsh, our endurance coach, to prepare runners for the upcoming marathon season. Ryan shared some advice for those who are training for the races that are just weeks away, now that we are in September. They discussed the "dos and don'ts" of training, which they stress are especially important to stick with at this point of the training cycle. Ryan emphasizes how...

Meet Jaclyn Lin of Northern New Jersey. At 35, she was expecting her second daughter. However, she began experiencing extreme back pains and abdominal discomfort at around week 20 of her pregnancy. When she brought these symptoms to the attention of her OB during a routine visit, further testing was recommended due to the severe and persistent nature of her pain. Doctors initially hesitated to per...

In this episode of the Project Purple Podcast, Vin, the program manager of our endurance teams, expresses his excitement for the upcoming marathon season. He shares that he will be attending the Berlin Marathon for the first time and reveals what it means to be cheering on all of the runners. He speaks to the evolution of the run teams and endurance programs and reveals his perspective as he is go...

Meet Holly Shawyer, a teacher who is originally from Maryland and now living in Charleston, South Carolina. She made a big move away from her family. Not long after moving, she began experiencing stabbing pain in her abdomen, accompanied by radiating left shoulder pain. Despite initially dismissing the symptoms as nothing to be concerned about, the symptoms returned one day at work, prompting her...

Meet Dr. Peter Allen, of Duke University. Dr. Allen is a cancer surgeon who specializes in treating patients with pre-cancerous and cancerous conditions of the pancreas, liver, bile ducts, stomach, and adrenal glands. He worked as a surgical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for 13 years before joining Duke University. He now serves as the chief of surgical oncology...

Meet Carlos "Charlie" Morales of El Paso, Texas. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January of this year. Charlie shares the challenges he faced in getting a diagnosis and the difficulties he encountered afterward. Charlie began feeling ill in September of 2023, experiencing severe stomach aches and pains after eating. His inability to eat caused him to lose 80 pounds from September to Nov...

In 2024, we launched Project Purple Sports to create team activities that support our mission of a world without pancreatic cancer. Our initial focus was on streaming and reporting on local sports to raise awareness and connect sports with Project Purple. We started at Seymour High School, where we streamed basketball and softball games for the Seymour Wildcats. With the school year wrapped up, an...

Meet Dr. Paul Grippo, an Associate Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in the Chicago area. Dr. Grippo has been awarded the Rick Carone Pancreatic Cancer Research Grant by Project Purple. This grant is given annually to honor Rick Carone, a late member of the Project Purple family who was a runner and athlete in Illinois. After completing...

Meet Dr. Emily Britton of Bristol, UK. She is currently undergoing advanced training in surgery at Bristol University, focusing on diseases of the pancreas and liver, including pancreatic cancer. Dr. Britton reveals that her initial interest in the medical field was due to her family's history of breast cancer. However, as she progressed through medical school and training, she developed a strong...

Meet Dan McNamee, who is originally from Cleveland but now resides in beautiful Paris. He was going about his life, starting a new family with his wife when he started experiencing pain in his left leg. This led him to visit the emergency department, where they discovered a blood clot. Further testing revealed a tumor on Daniel’s pancreas. Although he was living in Paris at the time, he wanted to...

Kimberly Brockman is a 57-year-old pancreatic cancer survivor from Iowa. She had a history of preventative care, including a breast lumpectomy in her thirties and keeping up with regular screenings due to her family's extensive history of cancer. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, she experienced symptoms such as difficulty swallowing, heartburn, and bowel issues, but felt her symptoms were being put o...

Camille Moses, originally from New York but now residing in Florida, is a stage 4 pancreatic cancer survivor who was diagnosed nearly 12 years ago. Camille was diagnosed in March 2012 at the age of 53. She led an active lifestyle, often taking her three large dogs hiking, walking, and swimming. Despite experiencing back pain, breathlessness, and fatigue, she initially attributed them to her active...

Kerri Kinkade of Connecticut was a pioneer in her field. She was one of the few women to graduate in information technology during the Vietnam War. Throughout her career, she worked in technical support and retired a little over a decade ago. Her battle with pancreatic cancer began during the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Her symptoms included loss of appetite and later jaundice. Due to the ci...

Meet Dr. Elishama Kanu, a general surgery resident at the Duke University School of Medicine Pancreatic Cancer Research Laboratory. She was recently awarded the Project Purple Innovations Grant for $100,000 to advance genomic profiling of IPMNs and correlate the information with clinical patient samples for the detection of biomarkers signaling high risk for malignant degeneration. In this episode...

Meet Lora and Chris Jenkins of Southern California. They are parents to three children and also have two grandchildren. Lora’s journey with pancreatic cancer began very abruptly in the fall of 2022. Despite feeling in great health, an intuitive voice in her head told her to get checked out one day in October 2022. She visited her local emergency room, where they found a mass on her pancreas. She w...

Dr. Anirban Maitra is a Professor of Pathology and Translational Molecular Pathology, and Scientific Director of the Sheikh Ahmed Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center since 2013. He is also the principal of the NCI-funded laboratory dedicated to pancreatic cancer research. His research primarily focuses on genetics and finding early detection measures for pancreatic ca...

Meet Bradley Paul, 30, of Connecticut. Bradley was born and raised in Connecticut and found his passion for Lacrosse during his childhood and continued to play it all through high school and later college at Clark University. In 2019, Bradley was 25 years old and at that time, he was preparing to begin his graduate residency program in Art Therapy in New Mexico and was filled with hope and excitem...

In late 2022, Benita Johnson, of Delaware, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before going on a trip, she visited her primary care physician for some blood testing as she was not feeling well. Upon returning from her trip, she received a call from her doctor's office regarding the results and was told to admit herself to a local emergency room. This is where her journey with pancreatic cancer b...

Dawn Szabolcsi, a Missouri resident, had been dealing with gastrointestinal issues since she was ten. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 54. Even though she had been to different doctors seeking answers, her symptoms were often misdiagnosed. She continued to experience symptoms similar to IBS and Crohn's disease, but tests never confirmed these diagnoses. Dawn reached a breakin...