Our research successes

“Unmatched and Unparalleled.” That’s what a panel of international cancer experts said about our research programme recently.

 

And with good reason. We’ve had some big successes in the fight against breast cancer. Not least of these has been the rapid translation of scientific findings into beneficial treatments for breast cancer patients.

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Developing new treatments

The Breakthrough Research Centre has been open for nearly ten years. It can often take 10 – 15 years of research before a new drug is ready for clinical trials. Despite these facts, our research has already led to eight clinical trials testing promising new treatments that could benefit thousands of women.

Currently, we’re refining two potential breast cancer drugs for testing in clinical trials. Each drug targets a specific type of breast cancer according to its genetic characteristics.

Finding new drug targets for breast cancer

Breakthrough has identified several molecules that enable tumours to grow. These include Aurora A, Endo180, FGFR1 and Tip60. If drugs that block these molecules can be developed, they could be used to treat women with specific types of breast cancer.

Beating drug resistance

We’ve made advances in understanding how some breast cancers resist drugs. Our scientists were the first to discover a genetic mechanism that tumours use to alter their genes – making them resistant to some drugs. This knowledge will help us counter drug resistance in the future.

Pioneering research into the causes of breast cancer

Identifying and understanding the genes involved in breast cancer is one of Breakthrough’s real strengths. In 1995, Professor Alan Ashworth was on the team that discovered the BRCA2 (BReast CAncer 2) gene - one of the most important genes linked to hereditary breast cancer. We also discovered that faulty CHEK2 genes, in combination with other genes, can increase the risk of breast cancer.

We’re proud of our accomplishments to date - and we know we can achieve even more.

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