Nominations for the 2009 Award are now closed.
The recipient will be announced in August 2009.
- Read more about the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
- Learn more about the 2008 recipient, Dr. Douglas Easton.
The Award and Lecture
The AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, will recognize an investigator of no more than 50 years of age whose novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the etiology, detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of breast cancer. Such work may involve any discipline across the continuum of biomedical research, including basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiological studies.
The recipient of the Award will receive a $10,000 honorarium and present a 25-minute lecture at the 32nd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The symposium will be held December 9-13, 2009 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, TX.
Eligibility
- All cancer researchers who are affiliated with any institution involved in cancer research, cancer medicine, or cancer-related biomedical science anywhere in the world may be nominated. Such institutions include those in academia, industry, or government.
- Candidates must be no more than 50 years of age at the time the Award is received, i.e. born on or after December 11, 1958.
- The Award will be presented to an individual investigator.
- Institutions or organizations are not eligible for the Award.
Nomination Process
Nominations may be made by any scientist, whether an AACR member or nonmember, who is now or has been affiliated with any institution involved in cancer research, cancer medicine, or cancer-related biomedical science. Candidates may not nominate themselves.
Nominations must be submitted online at https://proposalcentral.altum.com, no later than 4:00 p.m. United States Eastern Time on Friday, May 15, 2009. Paper nominations will not be accepted. The following materials must be submitted:
Nomination Letter, which must:
- be addressed to the Selection Committee, be written in English, and not exceed 1,000 words;
- specify the AACR Award for which the candidate is being nominated;
- describe the candidate's novel and significant work that has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the etiology, detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of breast cancer. The publications supporting the work should be directly referenced within the letter.
Candidate's CV. The candidate's curriculum vitae in English, including a complete list of the candidate's publications.
Summary Statement. A statement, no more than 50 words, summarizing the candidate's research accomplishments for which he or she is being nominated.
Preferred file format is a .doc. The candidate's CV may be submitted as a PDF file. The nomination is not considered fully submitted until the nominator receives a confirmation e-mail from the AACR; confirmations will be sent within two business days.
Nominators are asked to maintain the confidentiality of the nomination process and to refrain from informing the candidate about the nomination.
There is no restriction on the number of candidates that may be nominated by any individual scientist. There is no restriction on the number of nominators that may write nomination letters or that may sign a single nomination letter on behalf of a candidate.
Program Guidelines & Nomination Instructions
Nominations must be completed online using the proposalCENTRAL website. Full nomination instructions and program guidelines are available through the link below and on the proposalCENTRAL website.
Program Guidelines and Application Instructions 
Selection
Candidates will be considered by an Award Selection Committee appointed by the President of the AACR. After careful deliberations by the Committee, its recommendations will be forwarded to the Executive Committee of the AACR for final consideration and decision. Selection of the Award winner will be made on the basis of the candidate's scientific accomplishments without regard to race, gender, nationality, geographic location, or religious or political views.
Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. In 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure and launched the global breast cancer movement. Today, Komen for the Cure is the world's largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures. For more than 25 years, Komen for the Cure has played a critical role in every major advance in the fight against breast cancer - transforming how the world talks about and treats this disease and helping to turn millions of breast cancer patients into breast cancer survivors.
Questions?
Monique P. Eversley, Program Associate
monique.eversley@aacr.org
American Association for Cancer Research
17th Floor, 615 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106-4404
(267) 646-0576
SPOTLIGHT
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Inaugural Award Recipient
Douglas Easton, Ph.D.
Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and
Director, CR-UK Genetic Epidemiology Unit
Department of Public Health & Primary Care
Associate Director, Strangeways Research Laboratory
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, England
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Dr. Easton delivered his Award lecture entitled, "Recent developments in genetic susceptibility to breast cancer," at the 31st Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, TX.
The AACR honored Dr. Douglas Easton for his exemplary international consortium studies in breast cancer that have elucidated the genetic epidemiology of BRCA1 and BRCA2, and which have recently provided definitive evidence for polygenic predisposition. As a result, this has led him to develop risk models that are in daily clinical use world-wide. Dr. Easton was further honored for the establishment of the Breast Cancer Linkage Consortium, which has provided definitive evidence for the localization of a breast cancer susceptibility locus on BRCA1 and provided the first estimates of the breast and ovarian cancer risks in BRCA1 mutation carriers.
Most recently, Dr. Easton has been at the forefront of using new genome-wide arrays to identify cancer susceptibility loci. With his colleagues in Cambridge, he devised, conducted and analyzed the first genome-wide association study in breast cancer. This led to definitive identification of five breast cancer susceptibility loci, none previously associated with breast cancer: FGFR2, TNRC9, MAP3K1, LSP1 and a locus on 8q. Subsequently, his group, in collaboration with the CIMBA consortium, showed that the susceptibility variants in these loci were also associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in BRCA2 mutation carriers, but that only one (TNCR9) was associated with risk in BRCA1 mutation carriers. This result is consistent with other analyses in BCAC, which showed that the TNCR9 locus predisposes to both ER+ve and ER-ve breast cancer, whereas the other loci predispose predominantly to ER+ve disease. These observations indicate that these low penetrance variants may become important in counseling women who are BRCA mutation carriers and will be important for risk stratification in the general population.
Dr. Easton's many contributions have stimulated-and continue to stimulate-important directions of research in the field of breast cancer prevention.