Funded Research Projects.
Breast Cancer Cure has funded more than $11million in research in New Zealand over 27 years.
We are intent on ensuring all New Zealanders survive breast cancer. Projects and Fellowships funded by Breast Cancer Cure aim to improve outcomes by focusing on transformative research through more precise prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment utilising advanced and innovative technologies.
Our aim is that those who survive have a good quality of life and inequities are addressed.
Some of the funded Breast Cancer Cure research projects include:
Utilising antibodies as a targeted treatment for controlling growth of breast cancer cells.
Early detection of breast cancer (ongoing with four potential blood markers).
Investigating immunotherapy and the harnessing of our own immune systems to combat breast cancer.
Using tissue samples from women with breast cancer to make patient-derived explants.
New Zealand institutes that have benefited from Breast Cancer Cure’s funding include:
The University of Otago
The University of Canterbury
The Liggins Institute in Auckland
The Malaghan Institute in Wellington
The University of Auckland
Massey University
Victoria University of Wellington
Health New Zealand Waitaha Canterbury
Breast cancer is a major health concern that often goes undetected until it's too late, particularly among Māori and Pacific women in New Zealand. Our new research project aims to change that by using advanced Artificial Intelligence to analyze mammograms more precisely. The focus is on 'breast density,' a factor that can hide cancer from traditional screenings and is an independent risk factor.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for up to 20% of all breast cancer cases. For nearly half of all TNBC patients, their cancer will spread, frequently to the brain. Notably, for TNBC patients the spread to the brain happens earlier than in other breast cancers, which reduces both quality of life and life expectancy. Sadly, once the cancer has spread to the brain treatment options are limited, have severe side effects, and often only give minor improvements in overall survival.
A new class of anti-cancer drugs called CDK-inhibitors has recently entered the international market and PHARMAC funds these drugs for specific breast cancer treatments in Aotearoa New Zealand. These novel compounds are highly efficient and greatly expand our ability to treat this deadly disease. Nevertheless, only about one third of patients respond positively to this drug treatment and unfortunately, there is no predictive measure of which patients will benefit.
Dr Emma Nolan
Generation of a preclinical model that is more representative of breast cancer in our population, to inform patient stratification and preclinical evaluation of novel therapeutics and improve drug development pipelines.
Dr Gavin Harris
To incorporate additional functionality into a prototype algorithm. Validation and training of the algorithm to assess risk of recurrence to enable de-escalation and escalation of treatment which may involve assessment against a gene expression profiling.
Associate Professor Allan Gamble
In 2021, Sacituzumab Govitecan received accelerated approval by the FDA as a treatment for patients with unresectable metastatic triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). However, over half of all patients receiving this treatment still report significant side effects.
Dr George Wiggins
Women at high-risk of breast cancer are in need of new and effective prevention strategies.
Dr Kirsty Danielson
Breast reconstruction is an important part of the treatment process for women with breast cancer.
Associate Professor Vyacheslav Filichev
Drug resistance is a serious barrier to the treatment of breast cancer, leading to metastasis and cancer reoccurrences.
Dr Vanessa Lattimore
The ideal strategy for controlling and reducing the social impact of disease is effective prevention.
Dr Gavin Harris
Digital pathology is the reviewing of tissue slides on a computer monitor rather than using microscopes.
Dr Barbara Lipert
The antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) extends the survival of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer patients.
Dr Logan Walker
The future of successful genetic screening in New Zealand requires increased sensitivity and specificity of tests, and informed clinical management for high-risk breast cancer families.
Dr Annette Lasham
Early detection of breast cancer recurrence is critical for saving lives. We have identified two molecules, found in the blood of 250 patients at the time of surgery for breast cancer, that were very good at predicting which of these women would have a relapse before five years.
Dr Robert Weinkove
The aim of this novel and ambitious project is to develop potent new vaccines with potential to prevent recurrence of HER2 positive breast cancer.
Dr Dean Singleton
It is now understood that Triple Negative breast cancer has many biologic nuances and a heterogeneity not previously understood.
Professor John Miller
This research team combines leading expertise in synthetic and medicinal chemistry and cancer biology.
Dr Heather Cunliffe
The presence of a protein called Fn14 on the surface of 75% of invasive breast cancers, has been shown to be strongly prognostic for distant metastasis, with the strongest association in HER2/neu positive and Triple Negative breast cancers.
Dr Anita Dunbier
Treatments that stimulate the immune system to attack tumours have revolutionised the treatment of some cancer types.
Dr Jo Perry
One of the most successful strategies for treating breast cancer has been the use of humanised monoclonal antibodies to target secreted growth factors or cell surface receptors whose function has been upregulated in the tumour.
Associate Professor David Barker
Many patients with metastatic breast cancer do not respond to conventional chemotherapy and better strategies to treat these patients are urgently needed.
Dr Francis Hunter
Over 3000 diagnoses and 600 deaths are attributable to breast cancer in New Zealand each year.
Dr Tracy Hale
Metastasis is the primary cause of death in breast cancer patients as it refractory to current therapies.
Although breast cancer cells have heterogeneous properties, all of them have a high nutritional demand.
Dr Anita Dunbier
Every year, more than 2000 New Zealand women are diagnosed with oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer.
Associate Professor Logan Walker
Identification of cancer-causing mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, has well-defined and actionable implications for disease prevention.
Dr Annette Lasham
This translational grant proposes to build on exciting BCRT-funded science that has led to the identification of two RNA markers in the blood, which together may be able to indicate whether a woman has breast cancer or not.
Professor Parry Guilford
The inactivation of tumour suppressor genes is the most common of all genetic events in cancer but not one that can be targeted by conventional therapy, because the tumour suppressor protein is lost from the cancer cell.
Dr Jo Perry
Localised production of growth hormone (GH) is detectable in a variety of different human cancers, including breast cancer, and this is associated with an increased risk of metastasis and reduced survival for breast cancer patients.
Dr Dong Xu-Lui
Breast cancer affects 1 in 9 New Zealand women. Anti-estrogens such as tamoxifen have been used to treat estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer and reduce the annual death rate by approximately one third.