The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), an SABCS co-sponsor, will honor three renowned researchers for their work in breast cancer at the 2018 SABCS, to be held Dec. 4-8.
Ian Smith, MD, FRCP, FRCPE, will receive the William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award presented by SABCS. Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, will receive the 2018 AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, which is generously funded by a grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). Zena Werb, PhD, is the recipient of the 2018 AACR Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer Research.
"These very deserving recipients are the reason SABCS remains a leading global educational resource in research and treatment of breast cancer," said SABCS Co-Director C. Kent Osborne, MD, director of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "Their lectures about their work fulfill our mission of providing state-of-the-art information to scientists and physicians focusing on breast cancer."
"On behalf of the American Association for Cancer Research, I wish to extend our sincere congratulations to Drs. Smith, Partridge, and Werb on receiving these highly deserved awards," said Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), chief executive officer of the AACR. "Their outstanding research contributions have propelled advances in breast cancer science and medicine and have helped to save countless lives from breast cancer as well as to extend and improve the lives of patients with metastatic disease. Clearly, breast cancer patients are the recipients of their spectacular research."
Smith, a professor of cancer medicine at The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research in London, is being recognized for his extraordinary research that has changed the direction of oncology in the United Kingdom and around the world. These accomplishments include his research and testing of aromatase inhibitors, his pioneering work in neoadjuvant (preoperative) endocrine therapy for patients with large operable cancers, and his major contributions to oncology training in the U.K. Smith will deliver a lecture titled "Hold That Scalpel! Using the Tumor to Determine the Treatment."
Partridge, a professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, is being recognized for her work with young women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Through a developmental research cohort, she has characterized many of the complex medical and psychological challenges facing young women with breast cancer and has set the stage for future research in this understudied population. Partridge will present a lecture titled "Breast Cancer in Young Women: Understanding Differences to Improve Outcomes."
Werb, a professor of anatomy and associate director of Basic Science at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco, will be honored for her pioneering studies involving the elucidation of the mechanistic role of the extracellular microenvironment in regulating breast epithelial cell function. Her research has led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of mammary gland development as well as breast cancer progression and metastasis. Werb's lecture is titled "What Can We Learn from Breast Cancers that Metastasize or Don't?"
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Smith's lecture will be presented on Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 11:15 a.m.; Partridge's lecture, on Friday, Dec. 7, at 11:30 a.m.; and Werb's lecture, on Thursday, Dec. 6, at 11:30 a.m. These SABCS talks will take place at the Henry B. González Convention Center, San Antonio.