BCRF is thrilled to award its highest scientific honor, the Jill Rose Award for Scientific Excellence, to its longtime investigator and Scientific Director Dr. Judy Garber in recognition of her outstanding contributions not only to BCRF but to the entire breast cancer field.
“I’m so honored to be selected for this award,” she said. “The Jill Rose Award is given in memory of a very special woman by her family. For me, that drives home the fact that the work we do is meant to make a difference to women and their families. That’s a very important part of this award.”
Dr. Garber is an internationally recognized, multihyphenate expert in breast cancer genetics and risk, clinical and translational research, treatment for BRCA mutation–associated breast cancers, and more. She is the Susan F. Smith Chair and Chief of the Division of Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a medical oncologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Garber is also a past president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and has received numerous prestigious appointments and awards.
“Judy is not only an accomplished, many-times honored clinician and clinical investigator, but she is also an extraordinary leader of cancer institutions, from her work at Dana-Farber Brigham to the American Association for Cancer Research to innumerable conferences, thinktanks, and other professional gatherings,” said BCRF Founding Scientific Director Dr. Larry Norton. “What makes her so effective is not just her knowledge and intelligence but also her kind-heartedness, concern for others, ability to listen creatively, and eloquence. BCRF has been blessed by her involvement for many years, as I have been blessed by our friendship.”
Dr. Garber became a BCRF investigator in 2001 and joined BCRF’s Scientific Advisory Board in 2008, before becoming chairman in 2016. She was also appointed as BCRF’s Scientific Director in 2016—a role that involves helping identify the Foundation’s scientific priorities and selecting grant recipients.
“Judy has been a stalwart champion of BCRF as a member of its Scientific Advisory Board and, for almost a decade, as scientific director,” BCRF’s Chief Scientific Director Dr. Dorraya El-Ashry said. “For excellence in moving science forward for patients and for her enduring service to BCRF, this award is well deserved, and I couldn’t be happier that Judy is this year’s recipient.”
Looking back on her two decades of involvement with BCRF, Dr. Garber said she’s most proud of the fact that BCRF has grown into an even more innovative, collaborative organization than ever before.
“BCRF has been part of so many major advances in breast cancer, and they’ve done that by finding the most incredible researchers and fulfilling Evelyn’s dream. We support their work on projects that would be considered generally too risky for traditional funding,” Dr. Garber said. “I’m proud of the fact that the organization was able to do this during COVID and now after COVID, to be growing again, bringing on new investigators and especially including early-career investigators. It’s a unique organization with an amazing leadership and staff, and I’m so excited to be part of it.”
Dr. Garber was inspired to devote her career to breast cancer care and research because she comes from “a breast cancer family.”
“My mother, my grandmother, my mother’s sister, my grandmother’s sister, and all of her daughters had breast cancer. I grew up with breast cancer,” she said. “Of course, I would be interested in breast cancer and in the possible hereditary components.”
Over her illustrious career, Dr. Garber has, in addition to treating breast cancer patients, developed one of the first cancer risk and prevention clinics that recruits individuals and families with histories of breast cancer to evaluate them for breast cancer–associated genetic mutations like BRCA1, BRCA2, and PALB2.
Dr. Garber has devoted significant research into understanding and treating breast cancers like triple-negative that are more commonly diagnosed in BRCA mutation carriers, and she’s an expert on Li-Fraumeni Syndrome, a rare hereditary disorder that significantly increases a person’s risk of breast and other cancers. Her translational research has focused on evaluating novel therapies, such as PARP inhibitors, that target DNA repair defects particularly in BRCA-associated breast cancers.
“There are genetics and prevention themes to much of my work, but we’ve looked at many different components of this. And the fact that we could explore these areas has led to practice-changing trials and to exciting data about tumor biology,” Dr. Garber said. “I feel very lucky that I’ve had BCRF funding and that we’ve been able to use BCRF funding to develop projects that we could then expand and fund with government support, which is, after all, part of the goal. Also, we have had the opportunity to collaborate and strategize with many amazing BCRF investigators, another enormous benefit of the association with BCRF.”
With BCRF support, Dr. Garber and her colleagues are currently investigating the biology of breast cancers associated with BRCA and PALB2 mutations that are hormone receptor (HR)–positive, of which little is known. BRCA1-gene mutation–associated breast cancers are more likely to be triple-negative, which lack hormone receptors. They can be successfully treated with PARP inhibitors that work by blocking a protein that helps cells repair DNA, thereby killing cancer cells. Currently, patients with BRCA2/PALB2-associated breast cancers may be less likely to receive PARP inhibitors because their tumors are HR-positive. Uncovering what drives HR-positive, BRCA/PALB2-associated breast cancers could improve treatment.
“We’re asking: In these tumors, is the biology most driven by its hormonal mechanism or by its DNA repair mechanism, the part that BRCA and PALB2 mutations affect,” she said. “First, if we understand that, it might affect treatment options, because we would know where the Achilles heel really is. And second, it might give us clues about prevention.”
Dr. Garber will receive this award at BCRF’s annual Symposium and Awards Luncheon on October 25 in New York City. Learn more here.Dr. Garber will receive this award at BCRF’s annual Symposium and Awards Luncheon on October 25 in New York City. Learn more here.
Olufunmilayo (Funmi) Olopade (2023); Maria Jasin (2022); Lesley Fallowfield (2021); William Kaelin (2020); Eric Winer (2019); Hedvig Hricak (2018); Nancy Davidson (2017); Charles Perou (2016) ; Joan Brugge (2015); Peter Greenwald (2014); Titia de Lange (2013); Gabriel Hortobagyi (2012); Mina Bissell (2011); Angela Brodie (2010); Martine Piccart (2009); Robert A. Weinberg (2008); George Sledge (2007); Larry Norton (2006); Patricia Ganz (2005); Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus (2004); Bernard Fisher (2003); Harold Freeman (2002); Arnold Levine (2001); Walter Willett (2000); John Mendelsohn (1999); Benita Katzenellenbogen (1998); Judah Folkman (1997); and Mary Claire King and Joan Marks (1996)
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