An article was published in the Boston Globe last Friday about Gwen Trost, a Boston-based BHD patient who was diagnosed in the summer of 2012 following a pneumothorax. Gwen is co-owner of Sandrine’s Bistro in Harvard Square, and held a fund raiser for BHD research last weekend. Last week’s event raised over $30,000 and she is hoping to raise $150,000 over the course of the year.

Gwen is fundraising for Dr Othon Iliopoulos’ research at Massachusett’s General Hospital. He works on hereditary kidney cancers, and has previously published work on how the BHD gene, FLCN, controls how cells divide. His team have found that when FLCN is lost, this leads to uncontrolled cell division, which is known to cause cancer.