ACS-funded research targets basic building blocks of disease.(American Cancer Society; breast cancer)

2002 NOV 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- More than 2000 women in Illinois will die of breast cancer this year. But breast cancer mortality rates are on the decline, due largely to improved detection methods and treatment options, many of which are discovered through research, says the American Cancer Society (ACS).

In the search to find better ways to detect breast cancer in its very earliest stages and prevent its further growth, researchers are turning to biotechnology and enhanced imaging techniques that can display actual molecular events taking place in the body.

"Today the fundamental mechanisms of how breast cancer develops are being unraveled, and we are learning more and more about the disease," said Steven M. Derks, CEO, American Cancer Society Illinois Division, Inc., "These discoveries will lead us to better ways to treat and cure the disease in the present and, ultimately, toward a way to prevent it in the future."

The ACS awards breast cancer-related grants in the following areas: basic research grants in genetics; hormone action; diagnostics (imaging and biomarkers); drug development; and preclinical, clinical, and epidemiological studies in prevention, diagnosis, therapy, rehabilitation, and quality of life.

Current research in the U.S. includes studies of the basic building blocks of breast cancer development such as:

* Genomics: Going beyond the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to identify genes that may affect the risk of breast cancer in women who do not have a family history of the disease

* Proteomics: Finding protein and DNA patterns that may provide a new way to ...