Catalyst for a Cure
Creating More Survivors
A new comprehensive research program has launched at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that has the potential to advance our understanding of why breast cancer spreads and what happens to the cancer cell that allows it to travel and grow to the lymph nodes, lungs or the liver.
Cracking the Code
Despite many significant advances in breast cancer research, there is relatively little known about what biological changes cause a breast cancer cell to spread to other parts of the body and to what extent genetic changes in the cancer cells and surrounding tissue play a contributing factor. This program is designed to get us closer to that understanding. This research effort is being conducted in two parts:
Laying the Foundation: Breast Cancer Cohort Study
The first part is the creation of a new program that will enroll newly diagnosed women whose breast cancer has spread into a Cohort Study that will track their course over time.
As part of participating in this study, women will allow their tumor tissue that is stored in hospital laboratories to be used for research, and in some cases, they will consider having a biopsy to provide additional tumor samples. At the same time, women participating in the study will provide researchers with access to their clinical records and will also complete questionnaires to let the researchers know how they are feeling on a month-to-month basis.
Unfortunately, cancer sometimes has the ability to outsmart our best available treatments, and we need to gain a better understanding of what changes occur in the tumor when this occurs.
The Cohort Study will allow us to watch what is happening in women in "real time" and on a systematic basis — something that has never been done before in the field of breast cancer. Every woman participating in this study will contribute to our understanding of breast cancer and it is our hope that this Study will speed the pace of breast cancer research and direct it to the areas where we see the most potential benefit.
The Cohort Study is lead by Dr. Eric Winer, Director of the Breast Oncology Center and the Thompson Senior Investigator in Breast Cancer Research working with a team of clinicians and investigators at the Dana-Farber. The total funding for this program is being provided by a private donor and is being modeled after the Women's Health Study and Dana-Farber's Cohort Study of young women with breast cancer, "Helping Ourselves, Helping Others."
Building Upon That Foundation: Catalyst for the Cure
The second piece of this program is called Catalyst for the Cure. Its simple goal is to develop better treatments for women with metastatic breast cancer, and to learn how to prevent the development of metastatic breast cancer in the future.
Using the resources and learnings from the Cohort Study, we will be in a unique position to provide researchers from across the country and even around the world with an invaluable opportunity to understand how changes in a tumor lead to drug resistance, and how these changes affect a woman on a day-to-day basis.
The Catalyst for the Cure fund will support specific research that utilizes information gathered through the Cohort Study and other resources, expanding the potential to develop tailored and more effective treatments for patients with advanced disease.
A team of Dana-Farber scientists and clinicians, led by Dr. Winer and his colleague, Dr. Nelly Polyak, a prominent molecular biologist, will prioritize projects and select the promising leads for further development. Drs. Winer and Polyak will collaborate with scientists and clinicians nationally and even internationally in order to better leverage their efforts and accelerate the pace of research.
While the impact of this effort may not be known for several years, it is an important starting point for unraveling the mysteries of breast cancer metastasis. Seed funding for this effort has also been established by a private donor.
A Look Inside The Breast Cancer Research Process
If you are interested in learning more about each of these programs, please contact us by simply clicking this text.
Our plan is to take you "inside" these research projects so that you can very much be a part of our quest for the cure. We'll be giving you regular updates on every step of these projects; please click here to access our site's RSS feeds, where you can get regular updates on various topics.
Help Us Create More Survivors
If you'd like to help this effort to create more survivors by preventing breast cancer recurrence, please consider donating to the Catalyst for the Cure fund. 100% of your contribution will go directly to this Fund. Proceeds will go directly to a bank account held by Dana Farber and an automatic email mail generated by Dana Farber will be sent to you acknowledging your contribution.
Donations can start at $10 since where survival is concerned, we believe that every dollar matters.
