Komen has sustained a strong commitment to supporting research that will identify and deliver cures for breast cancer. This commitment has resulted in important progress that has contributed to every major advance in breast cancer over the past 25 years. With increasing investments over time, Komen is now the largest non-government funder of breast cancer research. Our commitment to energizing science to find the cures started in our very first year, 1982 with just one grant for $28,000. By the beginning of our second decade we were funding more than 20 research grants annually and just 7 years later were funding more than 100 research grants annually. Today, we have invested nearly $450M in 1,736 research projects. We currently manage a portfolio of 759 active research projects reflecting a $298,004,655 investment.
Our research focus has evolved over these years. In the beginning, we focused on understanding the basic biology of breast cancer and the factors that make these cancer cells divide without their normal control. Our contributions to understanding the biology of breast cancer have helped established the foundation on which new treatments, more effective early detection, and strategies for reducing risk and ultimately preventing breast cancer are being developed. In the early years, nearly two thirds of our funded research focused on basic biology, while today nearly half of our funding addresses the translation of this knowledge into treatment, early detection and prevention.
The following research highlights provide additional information about some of our areas of research focus.
Research Highlight: Early Detection
We have provided more than $50M to support research to identify new screening tools, enhance the efficacy of existing screening tests such as mammography, and to improve screening delivery to find breast cancer early when it is most treatable.
Impacts: Komen research explored the characteristics of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) as a screening tool and today MRI in addition to mammography is recommended for women at high risk for breast cancer – those with a family history or gene mutation. These women are at greater risk of developing breast cancer before age 40 and are more likely to have dense breasts, which can reduce the sensitivity of mammography. Komen research also led to development of new technologies like molecular breast imaging (MBI) which can detect three times as many cancers as film mammography among women with dense breasts.
Exciting research: Our research continues to address important new challenges, such as:
- Exploring novel biologic and genetic strategies for finding breast cancer early, such as detecting growth factors in nipple aspirate fluid or auto-antibodies in serum and genetic profiles associated with early onset breast cancer.
- Development of new imaging technologies that can provide enhanced, three-dimensional imaging and for some technologies, enhance the comfort associated with the screening examination.
- Identifying and utilizing biologic and genetic characteristics of early stage benign disease to identify masses more likely to progress to cancer.
- Understanding the role of risk factors, such as breast density, on the efficacy of different screening technologies and women’s screening behaviors.
- Exploring strategies for detecting certain breast cancer subtypes, particularly aggressive subtypes such as Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBF) and Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC).
Research Highlight: Metastasis
We have provided nearly than $28M since 2006 to support research seeking to understand the processes by which tumor cells migrate to other parts of the body and to identify therapeutic targets for stopping this process.
Impacts: Komen research supported early work by Judah Folkman, Nancy Davidson and others to understand angiogenesis, a process critical in metastasis by which tumors stimulate a blood supply for their continued growth. The first anti-angiogenic drug, Avastin, was approved for use by the FDA in 2004. Komen research also recently led to the discovery of a gene, metadherin, that promotes metastasis in 30 to 40 percent of breast tumors, providing an exciting potential target for therapy.
Exciting research: Our research continues to advance our understanding of the types and sources of signals tumor cells receive that trigger cell migration, and how the area around cells, called the extracellular matrix (EMC), changes to allow cells to start migrating. Examples of important new challenges in metastasis being addressed through our research include:
- Identifying the sequence of cellular signals that induce metastasis and testing the potential to use specific proteins and enzymes involved in these signaling pathways as targets for treatment or prevention of metastasis.
- Understanding how the types of signals delivered to tumor cells might change in different stages of the disease, how these signals might trigger cell migration, and whether effective gene therapies can be developed to correct these signals.
- Using new imaging technologies, Komen researchers are visualizing the extracellular matrix in living tissue, allowing new discoveries about how this matrix is constructed, remodeled, and maintained and how cells interact with matrix in ways that allow cells to pass through this matrix and spread to other parts of the body.
- Understanding a group of enzymes, called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which function in routine tissue maintenance but which also can trigger the process of metastasis in cancer.
- Defining the ways in which a group of proteins, called transcription factors, switch genes on or off and influence changes in the tumor cells that create different cell types within the tumor and can contribute to tumor progression and resistance to treatments.
