Karen C. Conlin climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro for cancer cure

By Mary Alice Garrett

This story originally appeared May 1, 2008 in The News Journal of Wilmington, Delware.

A local dentist will climb Mount Kilimanjaro in June to raise money for a promising new breast cancer vaccine being developed at Johns Hopkins University.

Karen C. Conlin will join 21 others to hike to the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak at 19,340 feet.

"I'm not the store," Conlin insists. "The vaccine is." She reluctantly agreed to an interview to help finance research on the vaccine, which promises to address some of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer and aid in treatment of other cancers as well.

Research on the vaccine is funded by Climb for Hope, a nonprofit organization established to find a viable treatment for breast cancer by 2009. Its organizer, Andy Buerger of Baltimore is a mountain climber whose sister has advanced breast cancer.

Seventeen Climb for Hope athletes reached the top of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador, the world's largest active volcano in January 2007. That was the organization's first mission and raised $150,000. The money advanced the research being conducted by Johns Hopkins physician Leisha Emens, who will be among those to climb Kilimanjaro.

The climb will be directed by Chris Warner, who in 2001 led 14 climbers to the summit of Mount Everest. An international climber and instructor, Warner has summited more than 100 peaks over 19,000 feet.

Conlin first heard about the Kilimanjaro climb last summer from a friend - nurse practitioner Molly O'Brien of Annapolis. The breast cancer clinician will be one of the climbers.

Coincidentally, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro had been on Conlin's bucket list "long before the movie 'The Bucket List' came out." (In the movie, Jack Nicholson and morgan Freeman play two 70-year-olds stricken with terminal cancers who seek to live out their lifelong fantasies.)

"I've been gearing up for this [the climb] for the past nine months," said Conlin. She trains three to four days a week at the Kennett YMCA by using the treadmill, elliptical trainer and doing Pilates.

When a photographer asked Conlin if she expected to reach the mountain top, she said, "I've got a lot of determination." She also plans to hike to both peaks (an hour apart.) "I'm not going that far to not do it."

The climbers will spend five days on Kilimanjaro. They've been advise to bring sleeping bags to withstand minus 20-degree weather. All are paying heir own expenses so that every dollar raised will go toward research on the breast cancer vaccine.

Wilmington orthodontist Constance Greeley praised Conlin for her professional work and her athleticism. "she's a pleasure to work with. She's a very caring and talented dentist. I love her demeanor," Greely said. Climbing a mountain for a cause "is very typical of Karen," Greeley added. "I think she's up to the challenge. She's no wimp. She has the heart of a champion."

Conlin has long been active in multiple sports: She was captain of the University of Delaware's girls basketball team for two years and MVP for one. She was also captain of Ursuline Academy's basketball team and made the All-Catholic girls basketball team during her high school years. In 2007, she substituted on a Delaware Senior Olympics basketball team which won the championship by defeating a Pennsylvania team.

"She had such good hands that something would always happen. She had a quality about her that winners have," John King said of Conlin. King remembers Conlin from his 40 of refereeing middle, high school and college basketball games in Delaware and Pennsylvania. He's now a patient of Conlin's.

Conlin i also into cycling. Most recently, she joined with groups to pedal 800 miles in the Yukon Valley of Alaska and 500 miles in Austria. A golfer, she was appointed to the 2009 executive committee of the 2009 U.S. Women's Open at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa.

Four years ago, Conlin jumped from an airplane at 13,500 feet - another goal on her bucket list. She says she "didn't like the feeling of free fall" and probably wouldn't have done it without a tandem partner.

Conlin hopes to live to be 100 as she has other goals on her bucket list: cycle across the country; raft the Colorado River, travel to Ireland to see her roots; learn Irish dancing and, most importantly, to take her young daughters back to Vietnam in three years "so they can see their roots." Conlin hopes to make a follow-up visit to Vietnam to do humanitarian work. "The [the Vietnamese] have given me the best gift of my life," said Conlin. "I want to pay something back to them." Both daughters were adopted at the age of 3 months from an orphanage in Vietnam.

Since adopting, Conlin has gotten involves with her girls' sports and activities. She coaches her daughters' soccer and basketball teams as well as helps with their Girl Scout and church activities.

Conlin worked in corporate biological research in Ohio for five years before going to dental school at Ohio State. Her father, the late Lawrence Conlin, had maintained a dental practice in Brandywine Hundred for many years. Karen joined the practice three years before her father retires. "It was a great way to transition with my dad. It was a real special time to work with him," she said. She has had her own dental practice now for 17 years.

Conlin has several friends who have had breast cancer. One is a fellow dentist. "Every time I put my shoes on [to train], I think of her," she said.