Remarks from Dr. Wendie Berg, 2026 SBI Gold Medalist
We are so proud of our Chief Scientific Advisor, Dr. Wendie Berg, who was awarded the SBI Gold Medal at this year’s Society of Breast Imaging Annual Meeting — the organization’s highest honor. We are honored to share her remarks in full and congratulate her on an incredible career.
Receiving the SBI Gold Medal is both very gratifying and very humbling, and the words “gratifying” and “humbling” really sum up a career in breast imaging. We are blessed by being able to truly make a difference in the lives of our patients every day, and mostly for the better. I have been super fortunate to have had some impact on the field more broadly, and that gives me a deep sense of meaning. But we all know that there is much still to be done. I want to share some thoughts about a good friend of mine. Susanne was a very successful research geneticist, very involved in her community, public health, and also in supporting political candidates who were interested in public health, communities, and scientific research. She had dense breasts and knew to get screening MRI starting in 2007. In 2009, the MRI showed what proved to be a 9-mm invasive lobular carcinoma. Her nodes were negative and she had bilateral mastectomy. She took aromatase inhibitors for ten years. Still, despite all the favorable prognostic factors, in 2023, she was having abdominal discomfort, and was found to have carcinomatosis, and, soon thereafter, orbital metastases. She signed up for many clinical trials and offered her tissue to researchers, recognizing that she was unlikely to personally benefit, but she felt it might help others in the future. Sadly, Susanne passed almost exactly a year ago. We have so much more to learn, and that sentiment is our shared legacy.
Today is an opportunity for me to publicly thank the research organizations, including NIH, the former Avon Foundation, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition, Komen Foundation, the Shear Family Foundation, and the many companies who have supported my research and other efforts. I particularly want to thank the many, many national and international individuals who have helped me and supported me in this endeavor, and you know who you are, but especially Etta Pisano, Ellen Mendelson, Phil Evans, Daniel Lehrer, the many other investigators in ACRIN 6666 (which I just heard referred to as the “demon study”), and those behind the scenes (including Carl D’Orsi and the late Steve Feig). Thank you to all those involved in DenseBreast-info.org, especially advocate and honorary SBI Fellow JoAnn Pushkin, and to the investigators in the trials comparing positron emission mammography and MRI, screening ultrasound and tomosynthesis, ultrasound AI, and my colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh now helping in studies of CEM. I especially want to recognize the many women who have given their time and trust to participate in the many research studies I have led in the hopes that they will help others in the future. And today, I can say with confidence, that they have.
Finally, I want to close with a bit more about Susanne. She was a devoted and accomplished gardener, and one of her favorite sayings was “Friends are the flowers in the garden of life.” I am blessed to have had many blooms in a rich garden of friends at the SBI. We have accomplished so much together, and we have much more growing to do. Thank you all.
– Dr. Wendie Berg, DenseBreast-info.org Chief Scientific Advisor