KINGSTON — With a simple pink ribbon leading the way, breast cancer researchers continue to make a dent in the number of women who are diagnosed each year with the disease. Organizations fund and support women who are diagnosed, and survivors can find strength in various groups designed to assist those who are fighting for their lives.

One group, however, is looking at healthy women who haven’t contracted cancer. The Sister Study is focusing on sisters of women with breast cancer, collecting data that could shine light on why some sisters get cancer and others don’t.

One Kingston woman is doing her part to help the fight.

“It’s been a few years since I started,” said Sister Study participant Mary Lou Luddington. “I saw it on TV and called in. I got involved because of my sister and her experience.”

The study, based out of North Carolina, has recruited more than 27,000 women in America to participate. The goal is to get 50,000 women involved, resulting in the largest single study on breast cancer. The Sister Study is being conducted through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, providing facilities to conduct the research needed.

Women who join the study are asked to complete various questionnaires, and provide blood, urine and toenail clippings for analysis. After these initial steps are taken, the women merely have to remain in contact with researchers for 10 years, the amount of the time the study follows women involved.

“Sisters are twice as likely as other women to develop breast cancer,” said Dr. Paula Juras, who is working as a project officer on the Sister Study research team in North Carolina. “Five to 10 percent of women will develop breast cancer because they have the genetic make-up. That still accounts for less than half of the one in eight women who get breast cancer.”

The study is aims to explain how a percentage of women contract cancer by looking at their sisters’ environments, both at home and at work. The study also asks questions about their childhood environment to try and determine whether that might contribute to cancer later in life.

“Sisters share similar genes and environments early in life,” Juras said. “Toe nails are a good reporter of dangerous chemicals, and they’re easy to collect and easy to store.”

“I always thought it didn’t run in my family,” Luddington said, adding that her sister used anti-perspirants, which can cause breast cancer in some women.

Luddington joined the study, signing up to report her life to researchers for a decade, then took a bigger step in the battle. She started working for the Sister Study as a recruiter, helping other women get involved.

“I recruited American Indian women,” Luddington said, adding that the rate of breast cancer in women who are of Native American descent is even higher than other women. “There was so much cancer in the little (Port Gamble S’Klallam) church I went to. I wanted to do something about it.”

Though she has finished with her recruiting job, any time Luddington comes across women with the right conditions to join the study, she gives them the necessary information and urges them to participate.

“I’ve met a lot of wonderful people,” Luddington said. “Women with sad stories and survival stories.”

“I think it’s a good thing,” said Mary McFarlane, who is one of the co-chairs of the Kathleen Sutton Inspirational Fund. She has three sisters, and between the four of them, herself and another sister have had breast cancer. “Anything they can do to help, that we can to do help, is good.”