Karen Wonders

Karen Y. Wonders (born January 10, 1979) is an American exercise physiologist, academic and researcher. She is a Professor of Exercise Physiology and Director of the Sports Science Program at Wright State University, and the Founder and CEO of Maple Tree Cancer Alliance. She also serves on the Board of Directors of MidWest American College of Sports Medicine, and Breast Cancer Task Force of Greater Miami Valley.
In 2011, Wonders founded the non-profit organization Maple Tree Cancer Alliance, which provides individualized exercise programming to patients who battle cancer. She is also most known for her book 40-day devotional, Beauty from Ashes. Wonders has received the Dayton Business Journal’s Forty under 40 award and WiBNTop 25 Women in Business award.
Wonders is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.
Education
Wonders graduated with a B.S. degree in Exercise Science in 2000 and later received her M.S. degree in Exercise and Rehabilitative Science in 2002 from Slippery Rock University. She then studied at Cedarville University and earned a Masters in Ministry in 2018. She first became interested in Cancer Exercise Rehabilitation in 2003, before earning her Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology with a minor in Statistics and Research at the University of Northern Colorado in 2006.
Role of exercise in DOX treatment
Wonders published a paper in 2008 discussing the impacts of a single bout of acute endurance exercise in terms of the cardiac dysfunction associated with DOX treatment. She found out that the acute exercise bout performed 24 hours prior to the DOX treatment protected against cardiac dysfunction, and this exercise-induced cardioprotection can be explained by a reduction in the generation of reactive oxygen species. Wonders also focused her study on trastuzumab and doxorubicin-related cardiotoxicity and suggested that incorporating exercise in context of the breast cancer treatment trajectory may eliminate the dosage and duration restrictions of these antineoplastic agents and affect quality of life. Furthermore, she studied the limited usage of an effective chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (DOX) in terms of its dose-dependent cardiotoxicity. Results of her study showed that DOX treatment reduced wheel running activity in rats, but this reduced running distance deemed to be cardioprotective as hearts from WR+DOX rats contained higher levels of the favorable α-MHC isoform as compared to SED+DOX. In 2009, she explored endurance exercise training and determined whether the performance of this training prior to administration of the anticancer drugs DOX and GW2974 would be cardioprotective or not.
Treatment strategies for cancer
In her study regarding the strategies for cancer treatment, Wonders suggested exercise rehabilitation as a lifestyle modification that positively affects the lives of patients with CIPN. She examined the impacts of androgen deprivation therapy treatment in context of cardiac function using Zoladex and an endurance training regimen. She also proposed the benefits of exercise in terms of treating the lung cancer patients.
Cost savings analyses
Wonders’ recent work focuses on cost savings analyses in cancer care. Her work has found that cancer patients who exercise during treatment experience an average reduction in medical bills of $3,000 in the first six months of initiation of the exercise program. These observed reductions are specifically measured with emergency room visits, 30-day readmissions, unplanned patient encounters, and length of hospital stay.
Awards/Honors
*2000 - Parker E. Enright National Award, Second place, National Order of Omega
*2013 - Fellow, American College of Sports Medicine
*2017 - 40 under Forty, Dayton Business Journal
*2020 - WiBN Top 25 Women in Business
*2021 - Outstanding Service Award, College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS)
Bibliography
Books
*Exercise Programming for Cancer Patients (2013) ISBN 9788178955810
*Pediatric Cancer Survivors (2017) ISBN 9789535132196
Selected Articles
*Wonders, K. Y., Hydock, D. S., Schneider, C. M., & Hayward, R. (2008). Acute exercise protects against doxorubicin cardiotoxicity. Integrative Cancer Therapies, 7(3), 147-154.
*Wonders, K. Y., & Reigle, B. S. (2009). Trastuzumab and doxorubicin-related cardiotoxicity and the cardioprotective role of exercise. Integrative cancer therapies, 8(1), 17-21.
*Hydock, D. S., Wonders, K. Y., Schneider, C. M., & Hayward, R. (2009). Voluntary wheel running in rats receiving doxorubicin: effects on running activity and cardiac myosin heavy chain. Anticancer research, 29(11), 4401-4407.
*Wonders, K. Y., Hydock, D. S., Greufe, S., Schneider, C. M., & Hayward, R. (2009). Endurance exercise training preserves cardiac function in rats receiving doxorubicin and the HER-2 inhibitor GW2974. Cancer chemotherapy and pharmacology, 64(6), 1105-1113.
*Wonders, K. Y., Whisler, G., Loy, H., Holt, B., Bohachek, K., & Wise, R. (2013). Ten weeks of home-based exercise attenuates symptoms of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in breast cancer patients. Health psychology research, 1(3).
*Wonders, K.Y. Wise, R., Ondreka, D., Stout, B. (2018). Supervised, Individualized Exercise Programs Help Mitigate Costs During Cancer Treatment. Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine. 8:4. 1000338.
*Wonders, K. Y., Wise, R., Ondreka, D., & Gratsch, J. (2019). Cost savings analysis of individualized exercise oncology programs. Integrative cancer therapies, 18, 1534735419839466.
*Wonders, K.Y., Foggia, N., & Wise, R. (2020). Driving Patient Engagement in Exercise Oncology: A Patient’s Journey Through Maple Tree Cancer Alliance. Journal of Clinical Research and Medicine, 3(2): 1-4.
*Wonders, K. Y., Stemley, M, Hale, R (2020). A Case Study: Patient Response to 12-week Individualized Exercise Program During Radiation and Chemotherapy Treatment. World Journal of Pharmaceutical and Medical Research,6(8): 303-308.
References

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