Funding a Cure

A recent $6.8 million grant to Boston breast cancer research programs gives hope for a future cure, researchers said.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation donated $6.8 million to Boston-area programs, money that Dr. Eric Winer, the chief scientific advisor and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Komen, said is necessary for finding a cure and improving cancer treatment.

“Money is critical for cancer research,” Winer said in a phone interview.

Each year, thousands of women battle breast cancer nationwide, according to a 2012 American Cancer Society report.. In the last decade, breast cancer mortality rates have plummeted and treatments have improved.

Despite these advances, however, more women suffer from breast cancer in the U.S. than ever before.

About 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during their lifetimes, according to the report.

Research: The magnitude of money

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation is the largest contributor to breast cancer research outside of the U.S. government. This year it donated $58 million toward breast cancer research worldwide.

As the senior investigator in breast cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Winer received a research grant from the Komen foundation this year.

“It costs a lot of money to do cancer research,” he said. “These grants are a very key part to the puzzle.”

The grants come at a time when funding is more difficult to come by, he said.

“This is a time when federal funding is down and funding from foundations is more important than it ever was,” he said. “When research funding goes down that means, in theory, that it’s longer until we have improvement in care.”

Like Winer, Dr. Peter Sicinski, another researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and recipient of a $900,000 Komen grant this year, said this funding will help both him and other recipients come closer to breast cancer cures.

He and his research team are using funding to study how the genetic makeup of humans, including gene mutation and certain proteins, contributes to cancer formation.

He hopes that by understanding this, researchers will find better ways to treat cancer and ultimately cure it, he said.

“This is an ongoing battle, but I am optimistic,” Sicinski said in a phone interview. “Curing is the best outcome and we are trying to find a way to cure cancer.”

Recipients and their research

Including Sicinski’s and Winer’s grants, the Komen foundation gave researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute $4.3 million this year.

The remaining Boston recipients are researchers located at Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Researchers from these institutions study a variety of topics surrounding breast cancer research, but research will focus primarily on personalized therapy development, according to the Komen foundation press release and website.

This includes the study of early- and late-stage breast disease, breast cancer prevention, the establishment of biomarkers for early detection, analysis of breast cancer within special populations and the investigation of metastatic and highly aggressive forms of breast cancer.

Boston researchers are studying different topics within these categories.

Among these are the analysis of current diagnostics and drugs to create new methods and medications, new and improved breast cancer therapies and an ultimate and common goal to reduce breast cancer mortalities.

Breast cancer in 2012

For 2012, the American Cancer Society is predicting about 226,870 new cases of invasive breast cancer in women and about 39,510 female fatalities from breast cancer, making the chance of dying from breast cancer 1 in 36.

Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States and is the second leading cause of cancer death among women — the first is lung cancer. Currently, there are more than 2.9 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society, a number that is growing and will continue to grow, as funded research methods improve.]

With these statistics, Thao-Vy Nguyen, a senior neurobiology student in College of Arts and Sciences hoping to engage in future cancer research, said a cure will end the worldwide suffering breast cancer creates. “It has become such a predominant illness in our time and its effects have touched us and all those around us,” Nguyen said.

This is one of many reasons why Nguyen is interested in cancer research upon graduation. “I don’t believe that there is anyone on this earth who hasn’t witnessed the sadness that cancer induces,” he said.

The future of a cure

The medical field has already made significant strides concerning breast cancer in the past decade, many of which arose as a result of Komen grants, Winer said.

Prevention and detection methods have both improved, treatments have evolved, and awareness among both men and women has increased dramatically said Winer.

However, Sicinski said despite these improvements, finding a cure is still the primary goal for researchers.

“Because breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women, finding a cure is very important for all women,” he said. “I don’t think that in 10 years time we will be able to declare breast cancer eradicated, but it’s going to improve dramatically, which means a higher percentage of women who develop cancer are going to be cured.”

Winer also anticipates that further breast cancer research will benefit other research for other forms of cancer.

“Many findings in breast cancer research are going to applicable to research that goes on in other cancers that affect women and their loved ones,” he said.

Students at Boston University said they realize how important funding is to research.

“I think it’s great that the organization was able to raise so much to fund that kind of research,” said Alyssa Thomason, a sophomore in the CAS. “I’ve worked a little bit in research and I know that funding can be hard to come by even if you have ideas about tests or experiments you want to do, so that’s definitely very important.”

“This money is essential,” said Madeline Rosenberger, a junior in the CAS and the College of Communication. “It’s money from organizations like this that is going to help researchers find a cure.”