This weekend, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis announced that the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center has received $5.4 million in new grants from Susan G. Komen for the Cure for breast cancer research.
Most of the funds will be used in a study to better identify which women with ER-positive breast cancer are at the highest risk for recurrence and to determine more effective treatments for those patients.
Researchers are currently working to find out why traditional anti-hormone drugs are often only partially effective in reducing tumor growth using DNA sequencing to compare a patient's normal and cancerous cells. The study will involve developing a test to determine which patients are most likely to have a recurrence after five years and which combination of drugs currently in development will kill all ER-positive cancer cells.
“There are so many new drugs out there for breast cancer patients that we need a way to establish which ones are most likely to be the home run,” said Matthew Ellis, co-recipient of the grant and professor of medicine and chief of the breast oncology section at Washington University School of Medicine, in a press release. “Our goal is to screen drugs to find the one that will produce the best outcome for the patient with the least toxicity.”
This particular grant relies on fundraisers such as the annual Susan G. Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure, taking place later this month.
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