About Our Research
The focus of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center is elimination of breast cancer as a major cause of mortality throughout the world. A major emphasis of our center is to better understand the genomic and biochemical landscape of breast cancer in order to identify specific genes and pathways that drive breast cancer development, aggressiveness, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. In turn this work will directly lead to improved prevention and therapeutic strategies.
A firm understanding of the master controllers of normal mammary gland development is a necessary starting point to fundamentally understand how aberrations in cell survival, proliferation, metabolism, and apoptosis drive the development of cancer in the breast. Establishing pre-clinical tumor models directly from patients provide pre-clinical rationales for new therapeutic approaches that overcome resistance to endocrine therapy, HER-2 targeted therapy, and chemotherapy.
We efficiently translate these findings into clinical trials that we can offer at our center and in collaborative efforts with our partner institutions. We align our breast health clinical service with these basic and translational research goals, as we provide diagnostic and breast cancer prevention services as well as personalized care for patients diagnosed at all stages of breast cancer.
Faculty Research Labs
Our research labs are led by investigators who specialize in an area of cancer research. They produce significant publications and offer research training within the labs.
SPORE Program in Breast Cancer
The Specialized Program of Research Excellence seeks to overcome fundamental treatment barriers that slow the progress of curing metastatic breast cancer by articulating cross-cutting objectives and working collaboratively.