The Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is proud to take the lead role in fighting breast cancer in South Florida and across our region. One of the unique endeavors of the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute is to bring together state-of-the-art clinical care with cutting-edge research into the underlying molecular causes of breast cancer. Under the leadership of its director, Joyce M. Slingerland, M.D., Ph.D., the Institute has witnessed tremendous advances both in research and in its clinical staff since its inception in 2002.
“We want to get the new information generated from basic science research,” says Slingerland, “translated into more immediate applications to develop new breast cancer therapies.” Slingerland is the recipient of a five-year, $1.5 million Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award, and has published research findings in many high-impact journals. In the last six years, more than 20 physician-scientists have been recruited to the Institute to enhance care to patients and bolster research that will ultimately reach those patients. There are now nine medical oncologists, five surgeons, two radiation oncologists and three breast imaging specialists at the Institute who treat breast cancer patients. Among those physicians is Mark Pegram, M.D., the associate director for clinical and translational research, an internationally renowned leader who played a major role in the clinical development of Herceptin. He is now working to help individual scientists translate their findings in the lab into clinical trials for breast cancer. One such effort is a collaboration between Pegram and Slingerland who are working to combine a new molecular targeted therapy with a standard antiestrogen drug to better treat estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. A clinical trial is expected to open later this month. Stefan Glück, M.D., Ph.D., clinical director of the Institute, has developed a portfolio of state-of-the-art clinical trials involving radiation, chemotherapeutic, hormonal and molecular-targeted therapies. As an academic-based cancer center, the Institute has access to clinical trials nationwide, providing enhanced ability to aggressively treat the most advanced cases. In addition to studying molecular mechanisms and developing targeted therapies, Slingerland leads a faculty that is trying to better understand what limits the access of our population to getting early diagnosis to breast cancer through mammography screening and medical care. With South Floridas diverse population, the Institute has recruited two population scientists to examining cultural, socio-economic and other issues that impede access. “One of the unique opportunities we have at this Institute,” says Slingerland, “is the ability to allow basic science to flourish, and then take those discoveries to the patient.” The multidisciplinary research enterprise at the Institute now receives more than $4 million annually in new peer-review funding to help speed new discoveries from the laboratory bench to the patients bedside. During the past three years, the Institutes Developmental Grants Program, with funding from the Womens Cancer League, has helped initiate 15 new breast cancer research projects. These grants provide early seed funding for promising research to get off the ground, enabling scientists to gather enough data to leverage established funding from the National Cancer Institute. As part of its mission to train the next generation of breast cancer researchers, the Institute is proud to have been awarded a federally-funded Translational Breast Cancer Research Training Grant from the National Cancer Institute, which will fund 3 post-M.D. or post-PhD trainees per year for the next five years. Three new post-Ph.D. and M.D. research trainees are learning how to apply their molecular findings into breast cancer therapies. The future appears even more exciting as a breast cancer geneticist joins the team in the coming year, bringing that expertise in treating those with a familial predisposition for breast cancer. There are also plans to build a new breast cancer center that will combine clinical care in the same building with chemotherapy units, operating rooms, along with dedicated research floors. The goal, says Slingerland, is to “bring discoveries from the lab to the clinic quicker so we can reduce the suffering from breast cancer and ultimately cure the disease.”
