Three UCSF researchers were awarded a total of $560,000 to support projects in breast cancer research. These grants are among those made to 124 researchers in 25 states and 15 countries, with about half of the grants targeted to early-career investigators.

Metastases cause the vast majority of cancer deaths, but their tiny seeds are so difficult to track that few researchers have managed to study them. Now, scientists from UC San Francisco describe capturing and studying individual metastatic cells from human breast cancer tumors implanted into mice as the cells escaped into the blood stream and began to form tumors elsewhere in the body.

A national risk model that gauges a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer has been refined to give a more accurate assessment. 

Lamorna Brown Swigart has worked in cancer research at UCSF for more than 15 years. Over time, finding funding for research has become more and more challenging. Lamorna says, “There are so many great ideas and projects, and never enough funding to get it all ...

Laura van 't Veer, co-leader of the HDFCCC Breast Oncology Program, and her team (Netherlands) was awarded the prize for the invention of a gene-based tissue test which makes it possible to offer targeted treatment for breast cancer.

UC San Francisco’s Alan Ashworth, PhD, has received an award from a cancer nonprofit organization for his “significant contributions to research, advocacy, clinical care, education, awareness, or support of hereditary cancer.”