One of the "founding mothers" of the breast cancer advocacy movement, Susan M. Love, MD, is an author, researcher, surgeon and breast cancer activist. The founder and current President and Medical Director of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation in Pacific Palisades, California, a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention of breast cancer, Love is also a Clinical Professor of Surgery at The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a founder and senior partner in LLuminari, a multimedia women's health company.

A cum Laude graduate of SUNY Downstate Medical School, Love's surgical training was completed at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, where she was chief resident in 1979. She opened a private practice in 1980 as the first woman surgeon on the staff of Beth Israel Hospital. In 1982, Love joined the staff of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and in 1988 she founded the Faulkner Breast Center in Boston, the first facility in the country to comprise a multidisciplinary all women staff.

She moved her activities across the country in 1992 when she was recruited to found the multidisciplinary Revlon/UCLA Breast Center. The Revlon/UCLA Breast Center, under her direction, developed the first comprehensive practice guidelines on breast disease. Within four years the Center was treating over 4,000 women a year and was designated one of the top ten hospitals for women by McCalls magazine. She continues as an Adjunct Professor of Surgery at UCLA, teaching medical students a multidisciplinary approach to breast cancer.

She received a $500,000 grant from the Department of Defense to develop an intraductal approach to breast cancer. This opportunity led her to found Pro-Duct Health, Inc, a medical device company where she serves as consultant and director. In addition, she graduated from the Executive MBA program at UCLA's Anderson School.

In her frustration at the lack of progress in breast cancer research, she helped found and currently directs the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a coalition of breast cancer advocacy groups formed to involve breast cancer patients and their supporters as advocates for action, advances and change. Through political action, this group has increased research funding for breast cancer from $90 million to $410 million in two years.

She is also the Medical Director of the Susan Love MD Breast Cancer Foundation; a nonprofit organization dedicated to the eradication of breast cancer.

Appointed by President Clinton to the National Cancer Advisory Board in 1998, Love currently serves on the board of the National Breast Cancer Coalition and formerly served on the board of the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization. She founded ProDuct Health, Inc., now a wholly owned subsidiary of Cytyc Health, Inc., and is on the board of Sanarus Medical, Inc., and 1747, both private companies. In addition, Love provides consultation to Cytyc Health Inc, PacifiCare and Sensei Health.

Also an author and educator, Love's first book, "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book," has been termed "the bible for women with breast cancer" by The New York Times; the third revised edition was published in September 2000. Released in 1997, Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book provides an equally authoritative range of information about menopause.

In 1997, Love retired from active practice to devote more time to research and to helping women through her writing and speaking. Her primary interests focus on the normal breast anatomy and breast duct fluid, as well as hormones and breast cancer.

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