When Evelyn Lauder appears tomorrow on the “Today” show to mark the the 15th anniversary of the pink ribbon, created to raise awareness of breast cancer, her Oscar de la Renta suit will be covered with all of her jeweled pink ribbon pins. She has a jewelry box just for these baubles, created and sold by her company, Estée Lauder, to raise funds for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which she founded.

This fashion statement barely comes close to capturing Ms. Lauder’s commitment to breast cancer research.

“What she’s done has changed the world,” a friend and supporter, Ann Solomon, the wife of the owner of Pace Prints, Richard Solomon, said yesterday at the foundation’s annual symposium and luncheon, at which Ms. Lauder wore only one of her jeweled pins, made by Nancy Ramsey and featuring diamonds and sapphires.

“No one is happier to be here in this room than I am,” Ms. Lauder said, a remark that captures her passion, frankness, and determination. She then announced that the foundation raised $35 million in the past fiscal year, $5 million more than its goal, which went to 151 researchers, an increase of 36 from the previous year. She added that the foundation donated 90 cents of every dollar directly to research.

And what about next year? “$40 million, I hope,” Ms. Lauder told The New York Sun. “There’s already $10 million in the bank.” The organization has given $190 million to research.

How is this accomplished? Part of the answer is individual donors. Ms. Lauder announced the largest gift in the foundation’s history, of $5 million, from Arlene and Joseph Taub, in memory of their daughter Sandra.

More insight into this fund-raising juggernaut came when the executive director of the foundation, Myra Biblowit, and a donor and friend of Ms. Lauder’s, Elizabeth Rohatyn, introduced the grantees along with corporate funders. “With funding from Bloomingdale’s, Titia de Lange, Rockefeller University,” Ms. Rohatyn announced as Ms. de Lange walked to the stage of the Waldorf-Astoria’s grand ballroom in front of a constellation of sparkling pink stars. Other funding sponsors mentioned were Dyson, Roche, and Coach.

Of course, the money wouldn’t flow into the organization if it didn’t make such a difference.

The chairwoman of the department of radiation oncology at the New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Silvia Formenti, said, “The foundation has made it possible for us to do this research — it generates the preliminary data that enables us to get new funds.” Her BCRF funding led to a $6 million grant from the Department of Defense’s Center of Excellence.

“It’s hugely less bureaucratic than the National Institutes of Health and other funders,” the president of Rockefeller University, Sir Paul Nurse, said. “It understands how to give grants, how to evaluate them, and how to make researchers focus on their work.”

The first lady of New York State, Silda Wall Spitzer, presented a CBS newscaster and colon cancer research fund-raiser, Katie Couric, with a humanitarian award. The scientific director of the foundation, Dr. Larry Norton of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, presented Dr. George Sledge of the Indiana University School of Medicine with the Jill Rose Award for his work creating large-scale clinical trials.

For the non-scientists in the crowd of several hundred, it was exciting to observe scientists interacting. Olivia Flatto, who has been throwing herself into fund raising for New York City Opera, caught up with her Ph.D. thesis adviser at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Robert Benezra. Her thesis identified a mechanism that regulates proteins, part of the effort to identify how proteins turn a cell cancerous.

“She was more talented at the bench than any grad student I’ve ever had,” Mr. Benezra told the Sun.

“I know how to cook, that’s why,” Ms. Flatto said.

“I’m a good cook, too,” Mr. Benezra said.

The conversation quickly turned to food. Mr. Benezra’s best dish: “Lobster bisque cooked from scratch starting with live lobsters,” he said. Ms. Flatto’s: “My veal stew; my kids love it,” she said.

Having published a cookbook of healthful recipes last year, Ms. Lauder made sure the meal served yesterday was nutritious. Themenu consisted of free-range orange chicken, baby bok choy, steamed shrimp dumplings, and a low-fat dark chocolate parfait.

agordon@nysun.com