Symposium Highlights Breast Cancer Research Advances
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Scientists, advocates, health care providers, policymakers and community members will share recent advances in breast cancer prevention, detection, treatment and survivorship research and look ahead to new research directions.
The symposium, "From Research to Action: Two Decades of Change," commemorates 20 years of work by the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP), which is administered by the University of California Office of the President on behalf of the State of California. Since its establishment in 1993 by the state Legislature, the CBCRP has been hailed for its innovative research and for involving advocates and community members in charting research strategies.
"The symposium is an opportunity for people who are affected by breast cancer to meet with the experts who are working on ways to halt the disease," said Mhel Kavanaugh-Lynch, MD, MPH, director of the CBCRP. "Among the goals is to give everyone a good understanding of the interactions between research and policy, how each drives the other, and the implications for future breast cancer research, prevention and care."
Symposium highlights include:
• Sessions on the environmental impacts on breast cancer risk, including discussion of a recent federal report, "Breast Cancer and the Environment: Prioritizing Prevention," which outlines a new path for future research. A panel to discuss the impact of the report on communities will include division directors of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute.
• A program on the "Role of Research in Setting Breast Cancer Policy." Panelists will discuss how laws on genetic patents and privacy and health care reform will shape team research, patient recruitment and health care in the years ahead.
• "Breast Cancer 101," a workshop on the fundamentals of breast cancer basic science and clinical outcomes for symposium attendees who do not have a background in scientific research.
In addition to some of the top breast cancer researchers in the state, keynote speakers will be:
• Susan Love, MD, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, whose address is titled "Pushing the Envelope: 20 Years of Pioneering Breast Cancer Research in California."
• Dennis Slamon, MD, Ph.D, director of UCLA Clinical/Translational Research and the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program at the JonssonComprehensive Cancer Center. Slamon and his colleagues conducted the laboratory and clinical research that led to the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin.
