Breast Cancer

With one in 12 women diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, research is vital to developing new treatments for the disease and PHI researchers are taking novel approaches to achieve this.

The PHI team, led by Professor Evan Simpson, an acknowledged world leader in understanding the role of the hormone oestrogen in breast cancer, is conducting world class breast cancer research.

Recently, PHI translation research in breast cancer received a major boost when the Victorian Health Minister announced additional funding for the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, an ‘institute without walls' which includes eight research institutes and the Cancer Council Victoria.

One promising line of research, headed by Dr Colin Clyne, has uncovered precisely how certain proteins can drive breast cancer growth and this discovery is paving the way towards new targeted breast cancer treatments. "The hope is this will lead to new drugs which block cancer growth and with fewer side effects than current approaches" says Dr Clyne.

Previous breast cancer research has identified how changes to our DNA affect how genes function and cancer develops. However, whilst genes are important in breast cancer, they are only part of the story. Dr Kevin Knower at PHI is identifying alternative, epigenetic, mechanisms that alter the function of genes linked to oestrogen production. This novel research recently caughtthe attention of the United States Department of Defense who have just awarded Kevin a research fellowship.

The unique opportunity to work in the lab with human breast tissue has led to some very positive research discoveries. In a significant finding last year using these tissues Dr Kristy Brown was able to show the molecular links between obesity, hormone production and breast cancer.

The journey from surgery to lab is now going full circle with a clinical study of a drug which may prevent breast cancer. Kristy's research suggests that the drug Metformin, already commonly used to treat diabetes, might also work to prevent breast cancer in older women.

Women are now being recruited to participate in a clinical study which will test the idea further in humans. More about the clinical study