Biology
Athletics
College of Arts and Sciences
Portland Magazine
October 25, 2019
by Amy Shelly '95, '01
BRIANNE ZBYLICKI HAD TWO GOALS when she arrived at University of Portland in August 2015: walking on to the women’s rowing team and making the most of research opportunities with the biology department.
She had no trouble making the team, and by spring semester she had been bumped up to the varsity 8.
For two years, she woke up every morning at 5 am to meet her teammates for the 20-minute ride to Vancouver Lake, where the rowing team practices for three hours (or longer) as the sun is rising.
Back on campus, after classes wrapped up, the biology major could be found in the microbiology lab with assistant professor Ryan Kenton conducting research on Vibrio vulnificus (an infectious disease similar to cholera).
All was on track until the spring of 2017, when she found a painful lump on her hip. She consulted with the athletic trainers, but the lump didn’t go away. Back home in Des Moines, Iowa, late that summer, Brianne went to see her doctor. In August she had surgery to remove the lump, and on the second day of classes that fall she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a type of cancer that forms in the bones or soft tissue around the bones.
That diagnosis kicked off seven and a half months of chemotherapy. “I had to drop out of school—I missed a whole year,” she says. “But I actually felt lucky while this was happening. I knew the tumor had been removed, and I knew I was going to be ok.”
Ewing sarcoma has a high cure rate if caught early. Still, the treatments—3 to 5 days in the hospital every two weeks—were grueling and a little boring. “My mom was an angel during that time,” she says. Her mom accompanied her to treatments and kept Brianne’s spirits up (they watched a lot of Madea movies together).
“I also kept in touch with my teammates and was even able to come out to campus twice to visit,” she says.
By spring 2018, the tumor was gone, chemo was complete, and Brianne was ready to get back to Portland. She returned determined to row again and get back to her beloved research.
Life on campus didn’t exactly pause for Brianne—when she returned to the rowing team there was a whole new class of students she hadn’t met. But coach Pasha Spencer- Levitan made sure she still had a place on the team and had arranged for a medical red shirt so she wouldn’t lose a year of eligibility. And Kenton held her research assistant position open for her until she was ready to return.
“Everyone was so accommodating when I returned,” she says of her teammates. “I mean I was sick and out of shape, but they took me back. The team dynamic was different because of the new faces, but I felt like I fit right back in.
“I’m still not as strong as I was before I got sick. I haven’t been able to beat my previous PRs. And I was worried about not being as sharp academically,” she laughs. She took a “lighter” course load of 13 credits last year (UP defines a full-time student as one who takes at least 12 credits) and managed a 4.0 both semesters.
This year is Brianne’s senior year and final rowing season. Her athletic goals include beating last season’s PRs, and she’s looking forward to the WCC Championships in May in Sacramento. She’ll continue her research with Kenton—they’ve recently published a paper in Microbiology Open—and after graduation plans to enter graduate school near her family in the Midwest. Eventually she’ll earn a PhD.
This is sometimes the point in the story where a cancer survivor says her illness or treatment inspired her to become a doctor or to research cures for cancer. Not Brianne. She’ll continue her research in microbiology. “I just like bacteria,” she says and smiles.
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