Research breakthroughs do not happen in silos. That’s why collaboration is at the center of everything BCRF does. In addition to supporting more than 260 breast cancer researchers who unite across institutions and scientific disciplines, BCRF convenes industry partners, nonprofit organizations, research groups, and others who share our vision of a world without breast cancer. Learn more about some of BCRF’s major collaborative initiatives below.
In 2013, BCRF established this multi-year international initiative to address the urgent challenge of breast cancer metastasis, which causes nearly all deaths from the disease and has no cure. The Founder’s Fund flagship programs are AURORA EU, based in Brussels and conducted under the oversight of Dr. Martine Piccart through the Breast International Group and AURORA US, coordinated by Dr. Nancy Davidson with clinical aspects being administered by Drs. Antonio Wolff and Ian Krop through the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium. The AURORA programs aim to conduct precise molecular analyses of paired breast cancer metastases and primary tumors to better understand how breast cancer grows and spreads outside the breast and becomes resistant to treatment. Read More
In 2019, BCRF embarked on a bold new initiative to apply the principles of precision medicine to prevention research, envisioning a future where doctors could customize a prevention plan based on an individual’s biology, history, and lifestyle. The overarching goal of this multiyear program is to fuel innovation by challenging the research community to explore new emerging technologies and multidisciplinary approaches, identify new ways to examine data, and build or enhance infrastructure and technologies that will accelerate breast cancer prevention research. Read More
BCRF launched a partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation to advance our shared goal of reducing breast cancer disparities. Our Health Equity Initiative seeks to improve outcomes by addressing the complex questions regarding how multiple biological and social factors interact to influence breast cancer risk and outcomes for Black women. Read more
In collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh, BCRF launched its Global Data Hub, a first-of-its-kind, centralized collection of breast cancer research data that will dramatically expedite new studies and amplify the impact of all BCRF investments. The BCRF Global Data Hub will include all relevant BCRF-supported datasets from its investigators around the world, and, in the outyears, data will be invited from and made available to the wider breast cancer community to ultimately impact all breast cancer research. Read more
Since 2010, BCRF has exclusively funded the Breast International Group-National Clinical Trials Network (BIG-NCTN). This is the collaborative effort of two large networks: BIG, established to fill the need for funding and collaboration in breast cancer research across multiple international institutions; and NCTN, supported by the National Cancer Institute and comprised of major research groups across the United States and Canada. Together, BIG-NCTN leverages the considerable experience of its members to tackle the most pressing issues in breast cancer.
This network has been instrumental in major advances such as improving the use of immunotherapy and identifying methods to decrease chemotherapy or radiation to spare patients from unnecessary treatments or side effects. BIG-NCTN has also initiated an international study on male breast cancer. Moving forward, BIG-NCTN’s efforts are focused on identifying ways to improve and advance precision medicine. Read more
The Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC) is a collaborative group founded with BCRF support in 2005 to conduct innovative, high-impact clinical trials for breast cancer. TBCRC was created to address a major unmet need in the field: As we increasingly discover that breast cancer is a complex disease, clinical research now requires the design of smaller, focused trials that are enriched with studies to help us reveal underlying biology. TBCRC is comprised of 18 clinical sites across the United States, which create multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary studies among its more than 200 participating trial investigators—many of whom are BCRF grantees.
BCRF launched this public-private partnership in 2016 to ensure the top breast cancer researchers have access to the most promising drugs in development and on the market—allowing them to perform laboratory and clinical research to advance lifesaving treatments. The Drug Research Collaborative initially launched with a three-year, $15 million grant from Pfizer, and it has since expanded to include additional multi-million-dollar grants and partnership with Eli Lilly and Company and Astellas.
When you give to BCRF, you're funding critical hours in the lab. More time for research means longer, healthier lives for the ones we love.
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