Top women stand up to cancer

Elizabeth Edwards, former Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina and other cancer survivors convened for a discussion called “Stand Up to Cancer” at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in mid-September. Hollywood producer Laura Ziskin was also on the panel. She’s a co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer, an entertainment-industry-led initiative that funds cancer research, requires scientists to work together, and is helping to accelerate  progress toward curing the disease that kills 1,500 Americans every day.

Ziskin, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2004 and has been fighting the good fight since, stopped me in the hotel lobby during the Summit and told me that she had made a film–a two-minute documentary–that she wanted to show before the Stand Up to Cancer panel. I didn’t know what this guerilla documentary might be, but I had to figure that a powerhouse producer whose film credits include Pretty Woman, As Good As It Gets, and the Spider-Man series would have something good to show.

Ziskin made her video with her tiny Flip camera. As it turned out, it was the perfect intro to the Summit session about cancer. Today, day one of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is a good time to share the film publicly . Click on the video below and you’ll see some of the business world’s most powerful women, all participants in the Fortune Summit–such as NBC Universal’s (GE) Bonnie Hammer, Walt Disney (DIS) media boss Anne Sweeney, Goldman Sach’s (GS) Kathleen Brown, Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne,  and Time Inc. (TWX) CEO Ann Moore–standing up to cancer. Because, as we all know, cancer touches everybody.

P.S. Click here to see Edwards and Fiorina–who lives in California is considering a run for the U.S. Senate–talk about their own missions to conquer cancer.