Millions of Americans deal with cancer each year, forced to face it when they’re physically weak, forced to fight it with conviction they never knew they had.

Alison Donnelly has never had cancer. She’s never had to recover from chemotherapy or undergo biopsies. But for the past three years, she has been at war with the disease, working to expose its weakness and bring it down for good.

A third-year medicinal chemistry doctoral student from Grand Island, N.Y., Donnelly is being rewarded for wreaking havoc upon the second-deadliest disease in the world. She is one of 11 graduate researchers nationwide to receive a $26,000 fellowship from the American Chemical Society to research cancer.

For three years, Donnelly’s battle against cancer stayed within the lab. But last fall, it became personal. Donnelly’s 18-year-old sister, Becky, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Within a few weeks, the doctors had to remove one of her ovaries, as well as a tumor estimated to weigh between nine and 10 pounds. Alison’s vast knowledge of the disease had perhaps never been more needed on a personal level.

“I think a lot of my family came to me just because I’d been working on it for so long,” she said. “So, the doctors would tell them something, and I would try to help translate.”

Her father, Thomas, would call her with questions about the information given to him by doctors. Becky said she wanted Alison there more for emotional support.

“I did my own crazy, independent research online, finding out about my own condition,” Becky said. “But she was definitely a resource for the family, in terms of, ‘What were the doctors actually saying?’”

Donnelly never had a trace of cancer in her family. A healthy and active 25-year-old, she studied cancer because it had been an interest in her undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University. While at Case Western, in Cleveland, Alison majored in chemistry and modern languages and literatures. It was there she focused her ambitions on medicinal chemistry.

“I was always interested in organic chemistry,” she said. “It’s only so much that you can make molecules. But for what? The idea of medicinal chemistry was a draw for me because it’s making molecules with a purpose.”

Donnelly’s interest in cancer preceded her little sister’s illness. Early on, Donnelly’s family knew she would dominate a chemistry lab some day. Her mother, Martha, said she could recall an assignment given to her daughter when she was in middle school. The assignment was one most people have experienced in one form or another: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Donnelly, a seventh grader at the time, wrote that she wanted to be a clinical pharmacologist.

“One of her brothers might’ve said he wanted to be an astronaut or a physicist or something,” Martha said. “But here she’s in the same field. She’s in pharmacology and medicinal chemistry. So, it’s pretty incredible that she knew that back then.”

Donnelly said she credited a lot of her success to her boss and mentor, Brian Blagg, associate professor of medicinal chemistry. For three years, Donnelly has been one of 20 students working in the lab supervised by Blagg.

Blagg was also recently recognized nationally for his work. He received the 2009 David W. Robertson Memorial Award, which is given annually to scientists under the age of 40 who have made substantial contributions to medicinal chemistry.

Blagg has been a key player in Donnelly’s research, which involves targeting Hsp90, or heat shock protein 90. Cancer cells rely on this protein to proliferate. Although Hsp90 inhibitors exist in some drugs, Donnelly’s research, and the research of everyone in her lab, will target the protein in a unique way that wouldn’t exhibit the side effects of known Hsp90 inhibitors. Donnelly said it that they would be inhibiting cancer through a novel mechanism.

Donnelly had applied for the medicinal and organic chemistry fellowships, both highly competitive and prestigious awards. After she didn’t get the medicinal chemistry fellowship, she said she had assumed that was the end of it. A few weeks later, she was sitting at her computer, munching on a granola bar when the e-mail came saying that she’d been selected to receive one of the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowships.

Donnelly laughed when she recounted Blagg’s reaction to the news. She said his complete astonishment at the news she had received the award was almost insulting.

Blagg said his shock had more to do with Alison applying for an organic chemistry fellowship as a medicinal chemist. He said fewer than five medicinal chemists had received organic chemistry awards in the last 20 years.

“I was shocked because, for some reason, medicinal chemistry is considered like the stepsister of organic chemistry,” he said. “And they don’t really give any of these organic chemistry awards to medicinal chemists.”

A year has passed since Becky’s diagnosis. She underwent a second surgery and more biopsies in the months that followed to determine if chemotherapy would be necessary. Two days before Christmas, the Donnelly family received the news that Becky was cancer-free.

“Best Christmas present ever,” Becky said.

When complimented on her research, Donnelly is quick to say she is not the only one doing it, but rather, she’s the only one that applied for the fellowship. Blagg said Alison got the fellowship through her own performance, citing her outstanding letters of recommendation, work ethic, tenacity and insight. He said her motivation was one of her greatest attributes.

“There are a lot of things that students can be taught in class and with textbooks,” he said. “But ambition is one that’s kind of inherent in the individual. She seems to have quite a bit of it.”

— Edited by Lauren Cunningham