Breast Cancer Research Gets Funding Boost

The breast cancer research program at Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital has been awarded $13.5 million over the next five years to continue its work on quickly bringing discoveries from the laboratory to patients.

The National Cancer Institute renewed Baylor’s Specialized Program of Research Excellence grant for breast cancer, also called a SPORE grant, at an average of $2.7 million a year. The research program, led by C. Kent Osborne, M.D., was one of the first four Specialized Programs of Research Excellence in breast cancer designated by the institute in 1992. Nine programs in the United States have now been designated as breast cancer SPOREs.

“Translational research is critical to breast cancer,” said Osborne, director of the Breast Center at Baylor and Methodist. “This type of research bridges the gap between basic science and the clinic. It helps us bring new therapies to patients much faster.”

The five specific projects funded by the grant include a study of why tumors become resistant to tamoxifen, how genes might predict which breast cancers will become invasive, new medications to prevent breast cancer, the role of an estrogen receptor mutant, and determining which tumors will respond to certain forms of chemotherapy.

Other areas of the center receiving funding support are the tumor bank, biostatistics, pathology and administration.

Through the SPORE grant program, the NCI funds basic research discoveries that are the most likely to have an impact on patients. The program also helps support investigators to be trained in translational research and the initial work on research projects to move them forward.

The breast cancer research program at Baylor includes basic laboratory research and patient care at the Breast Care Center at Baylor and The Methodist Hospital.

The Baylor program is the only recipient of SPORE grant funding for breast cancer in Texas.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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