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Like her mom, UW professor battled breast cancer. Now she’s the first to complete vaccine trial.

Dr. Eva Vivian was a teenager when her mother, not yet 40, learned she had a breast tumor.Vivian’s memories aren’t pleasant.

“The only option was a mastectomy. They were mean to women back then. It was a male-dominated profession,” said Vivian, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Pharmacy. “There wasn’t a lot of empathy toward women who developed breast cancer.”