Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion represents a focused effort to encourage and support investigators from diverse backgrounds that are underrepresented in the cancer-related sciences workforce and to foster their career advancement.
2025 Grantees
Scientific Statement of Research
Dr. Branham previously showed that the transcriptional regulator ID4 is overexpressed in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), where it promotes an undifferentiated and aggressive phenotype. In this project, she will investigate the molecular and phenotypic consequences of ID4 silencing. Integrating transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling, her team will define downstream changes in gene expression, chromatin accessibility, and regulatory networks. Functional assays in cell-based and preclinical TNBC models will assess how ID4 modulation influences tumor differentiation, proliferation, and behavior. By elucidating ID4’s role in TNBC progression, she aims to identify reprogramming-based therapeutic vulnerabilities.
Biography
Dr. Branham received her undergraduate degree in molecular biology from the National University of San Luis in 2002. She earned her PhD in biology with a specialization in molecular biology in 2010 from the PROBIOL Program at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza. Dr. Branham is currently an associate researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Argentina. Her research focuses on triple-negative breast cancer, exploring strategies such as epigenetic regulation and cellular reprogramming. By studying genes like ID4, she aims to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities to improve outcomes for breast cancer patients.
Acknowledgment of Support
“Receiving this AACR grant is a tremendous honor that will accelerate my research in triple-negative breast cancer and support my development as an independent investigator. This funding is critical for advancing my scientific goals and contributing to a more inclusive and globally connected research community through AACR’s diversity initiatives.”
Scientific Statement of Research
Breast cancer stigma has been identified as a major barrier and primary reason why many women in Africa and around the world are unwilling to receive curative breast cancer treatment. Dr. Fadelu aims to develop a breast cancer stigma-mitigating intervention named RISE – Resilience, Support and Exposure – designed for both patients and caregivers. He envisions RISE as a three-part intervention: resilience skills training, caregiver peer-support groups, and exposure to survivors through video storytelling. Using community-based participatory research methods, he will develop and prototype these components with input from diverse stakeholders. He will pilot the intervention to assess its feasibility and acceptability as a stigma-reduction strategy.
Biography
Originally from Nigeria, Dr. Fadelu completed his undergraduate degree at Baylor University. He earned his medical degree from Yale University and completed internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His medical oncology fellowship was at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, during which he also earned a master’s in public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is currently the deputy director of the Center for Global Health Equity in the Division of Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he is focused on global inequities in breast cancer.
Acknowledgment of Support
“This award comes at a critical time, and it will provide an important bridge at this early phase of developing our stigma intervention. We hope to carry the intervention into a large future trial to assess efficacy and effectiveness.”
Scientific Statement of Research
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells lack hormone receptors, limiting treatment options and contributing to poor prognosis. MICA is a stress-induced ligand frequently expressed on tumor cells but absent from normal tissues, making it an attractive immunotherapeutic target. Dr. Fuertes and colleagues have developed a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against MICA with promising results in preclinical models. They aim to evaluate the efficacy of this anti-MICA mAb and a corresponding antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) in TNBC models, both alone and in combination with chemotherapy or immune checkpoint inhibitors. Mechanistic studies will investigate how these therapies influence the tumor microenvironment and anti-tumor immunity. In parallel, tumor and blood samples from TNBC patients will be analyzed to assess MICA expression and to evaluate the ex vivo effects of these therapies. This research seeks to establish proof-of-concept for MICA-targeted immunotherapy and to support its translation to clinical applications in breast cancer.
Biography
Dr. Fuertes received her doctorate from the University of Buenos Aires and completed her postdoctoral training in tumor immunology at the University of Chicago. She is currently an assistant professor of immunology and independent researcher at CONICET, Argentina. Her research focuses on understanding the dynamics of cancer-immune system interactions and the interplay between innate and adaptive anti-tumor immune responses, with the goal of developing novel immunotherapeutic strategies to treat cancer.
Acknowledgement of Support
“I am honored and grateful for this award, which will accelerate my research on innovative cancer immunotherapies and strengthen my career as an independent investigator. This support will advance my efforts to develop novel treatments for breast cancer patients and promote diversity and inclusion in cancer research.”
Scientific Statement of Research
Hypoxia induces an inflammatory phenotype in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Dr. Kugeratski and her team have previously characterized hypoxia-induced changes in the proteome and secretome of patient-derived CAFs. Their work uncovered new mechanisms that not only regulate the inflammatory phenotype of CAFs but also enable them to reshape the tumor microenvironment (TME) by actively promoting angiogenesis, an essential process for cancer progression. In the current project, they will utilize genetically engineered mouse models to define the role of inflammatory CAFs in the breast TME. Additionally, they will analyze tumors from ethnically and molecularly diverse breast cancer cohorts using state-of-the-art spatial proteomics approaches.
Biography
Dr. Kugeratski is a cancer biologist specializing in cell-cell communication in breast cancer. She received her PhD in cancer sciences from the University of Glasgow, Scotland and joined MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) for her postdoctoral training in cancer biology and immunology. Her research has advanced understanding of hypoxia-driven angiogenesis and the core proteome of exosomes, and explored engineered extracellular vesicles for cancer therapy. She joined the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at MDACC as faculty in 2024. She combines genetically engineered mouse models with spatial proteomics analysis of patient samples to uncover new functions of CAFs in immune regulation.
Acknowledgment of Support
“I am beyond honored to receive the 2025 Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion. This award will advance our understanding of inflammatory CAFs in the tumor microenvironment, with strong potential to uncover new therapeutic avenues to treat breast cancer patients through stromal targeting.
Scientific Statement of Research
Despite its distinct biology, invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is treated similarly to common forms of breast cancer, often with suboptimal outcomes. Dr. Pareja and her team aim to improve ILC treatment by developing antibody drug conjugate (ADC)-based therapies tailored to this subtype. They will elucidate how E-cadherin deficiency impacts ADC delivery and efficacy, identify ILC-enriched ADC targets in preclinical models and patient samples, and develop combination therapies to enhance ADC effectiveness. This work seeks to advance precision therapies and improve outcomes for patients with ILC, a unique and challenging breast cancer subtype.
Biography
Dr. Pareja earned her medical degree from Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria, Peru and her doctoral degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. She completed her pathology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University and fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering. She is currently a breast pathologist and physician-scientist at MSK Cancer Center, where she co-leads the Lobular Breast Cancer Program. Her research explores the molecular characterization of special breast cancer subtypes, the interplay between somatic and germline alterations, and endosomal acidification in therapeutic response.
Acknowledgement of Support
“I am truly honored and grateful to receive the Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion. This award will significantly enhance our efforts, through the MSK Lobular Breast Cancer Program, to decipher the unique biology of lobular breast cancer and develop tailored therapies for this historically understudied breast cancer subtype. I also look forward to amplifying the mission of this award by fostering inclusion and encouraging broader participation in breast cancer research.”
2024 grantees
Research
Tumors can evade the immune system by intrinsically upregulating genes of immune evasion (e.g., CD47). However, it remains unknown whether mechanisms activating the immune evasion program in cancer cells are patient-specific. This information is key for generating tailored treatments to recruit the immune system for the eradication of cancer. Super-enhancers are long genomic regions that have potent gene regulatory activity and are critical for the upregulation of immune suppressive genes within breast cancer cells. This proposal aims to determine whether an eight-base pair binding motif, encoded by a patient-specific genomic insertion, actives a super-enhancer-driven program of immune evasion through the dual regulation of CD47 and the long intergenic non-coding regulatory gene 00636 (LINC00636). Therefore, this insertion could be a signature of tumor immune escape and, consequently, progression in patients carrying this genomic variant.
Biography
Dr. Betancur received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Stony Brook University, NY, and her doctorate in cell biology from California Institute of Technology. She completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford University, where she studied the genomic mechanisms that activate an immune evasion program in cancer cells through CD47 upregulation. Dr. Betancur became a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco in 2019, where her research focuses on gene regulation and immunogenomics.
Acknowledgment of Support
“The Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion enables me to engage in programs that promote diversity and inclusion while performing cancer research. This preserves my passion for both causes and ensures I can contribute to them with dedication.”
Research
Dr. Sanchez-Vega’s team will create and analyze a comprehensive multimodal database for a racially diverse population of 1,600 locally advanced breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. This database will include comprehensive clinical information, as well as digitized pathology slides, magnetic resonance images, and targeted DNA sequencing data. This cohort will be used to build race-informed multimodal machine learning algorithms that predict complete pathological response to neoadjuvant therapy. Dr. Sanchez-Vega will investigate the predictive performance of individual data modalities when patients are stratified by race and relevant molecular subtypes. His team will design deep learning models that integrate multiple data modalities in a race-informed manner and optimize them to generalize to diverse real-world populations. The database and computational pipelines generated will be made publicly available to facilitate long term development of multimodal methods that further improve predictive and prognostic capabilities for breast cancer patients.
Biography
Dr. Sanchez-Vega earned his doctorate in applied mathematics and statistics, with an area of specialization in computational medicine, from Johns Hopkins University. He is currently an assistant attending in the computational oncology service of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Dr. Sanchez-Vega’s research focuses on translational applications of machine learning, statistical modeling, and computational methods to the field of cancer genomics and precision oncology. His group is also interested in the use and implementation of novel computational approaches for multimodal integration of genomic sequencing data and orthogonal sources of biological and clinical information.
Acknowledgment of Support
“The Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion will provide me with dedicated resources and protected research time to work on breast cancer disparities research. Importantly, the analysis methodology and the race-informed computational models that my team will develop will be extendable to investigate related questions in other cancer types in the future.”
2023 grantees
Research
Social determinants of health (SDOH) may worsen cancer disparities. The Penn Individualized Management for Patient-Centered Targets (IMPaCT) model is a standardized community health worker intervention for addressing health inequity and SDOH, with proven effectiveness in chronic disease management. The IMPaCT program has currently been scaled up to 50 organizations in 20 states and the Veterans Administration health system, but the effectiveness of this model has not been previously studied in patients with cancer. The goal of this proposal is to evaluate the effectiveness of IMPaCT on cancer stage distribution, missed oncology clinic appointment rates and cancer-related outcomes in patients previously enrolled in IMPaCT across the University of Pennsylvania Health System from 2013-2022, who received any cancer diagnosis following enrollment in IMPaCT. Additionally, Dr. Martei and her research group plan to pilot and evaluate implementation outcomes of a breast cancer-adapted community health worker program integrated into breast cancer care delivery, using the Implementation Mapping for Adaptation framework.
Biography
Dr. Martei graduated from Harvard College and Yale School of Medicine. She completed her internal medicine training at the University of California, San Francisco, and hematology-oncology fellowship and Master of Science in clinical epidemiology at University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Martei is currently a medical oncologist, an assistant professor of medicine, and the vice chief of diversity, inclusion and health equity in the Hematology-Oncology Division at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research is focused on implementation strategies for eliminating global disparities in breast cancer outcomes by optimizing high quality breast cancer therapy delivery in low-resource settings and among patients with complex co-morbidities.
Acknowledgement of Support
“This research focus aligns with my vision for health equity in cancer, and I am excited for the opportunity to be able to implement this proposal through this Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Awards to Promote Diversity and Inclusion mechanism. This funding is critical for building preliminary data in an area of disparity and great need.”
Research
Patients with breast cancer are thought to be intrinsically resistant to immune checkpoint inhibitors, in part, due to a suppressed tumor microenvironment (TME) by myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). Previous work by the Roussos Torres lab demonstrated in preclinical models that entinostat decreases MDSC suppression. A better understanding of mechanisms to overcome the immunosuppressive TME of breast cancer will provide a basis for more specific molecular and/or cellular targets. Dr. Roussos Torres will examine the molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating intra- and inter-tumoral MDSC response to entinostat as well as the contribution of entinostat-treated macrophages and dendritic cells on decreased MDSC suppressive function. These findings will be validated in samples collected from patients enrolled in a clinical trial (NCI-9844).
Biography
Dr. Roussos Torres received undergraduate degrees in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and dance, from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2005. She then received her medical and doctorate degrees (MD/PhD) from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2012. She completed her internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and a fellowship in oncology in 2018 at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Roussos Torres became an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Southern California in the Division of Oncology.
Acknowledgement of Support
“As a passionate female physician scientist in the throes of building my career, I am honored to receive this award from BCRF and AACR! This type of national recognition and support is invaluable and a tremendous honor as I continue to strive for excellence in all that I do.”
2022 Grantees
Research
Dysregulated immunoglobulin production and preexisting autoantibodies may contribute to autoimmune adverse events (AE) of immunotherapy (e.g., thyroid disease) and immune-mediated AEs of chemotherapy (e.g., peripheral neuropathy (CIPN)). This proposal aims to identify autoantibodies that are associated with therapy-induced immune-related AEs (irAEs) in patients with breast cancer. Dr. Blenman is set to: 1) determine if preexisting serum autoantibodies are associated with irAEs, and 2) determine if specific preexisting serum autoantibodies protein epitopes are associated with irAEs. This study has the potential to uncover biomarkers that can be used to forecast and monitor irAEs before, during, and after therapy to help guide treatments and evaluate survivorship.
Biography
Dr. Kim Blenman is an immunologist and clinical chemist who uses and develops novel software tools to understand the mechanisms responsible for disparities in disease pathogenesis and therapeutic response. In addition to an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a doctoral degree in immunology, she has a certificate in Drug Development and Regulatory Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. She had the privilege of learning and working on drug discovery and clinical development at Procter & Gamble’s Pharmaceutical division as a senior scientist and as a global research director for autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, California. Dr. Blenman is currently an Assistant Professor in the Yale School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine Section of Medical Oncology and the Yale Cancer Center as well as in the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Computer Science.
Acknowledgment of Support
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation-AACR Career Development Awards to Promote Diversity and Inclusion will be instrumental in helping me be a leader in the field and an advocate for equity in clinical research for all.
Research
Although lymph nodes play a critical role in the expansion of anti-cancer T cells, they are frequent sites of metastatic spread. Prior work by Dr. Jones and colleagues found that compression of blood vessels by breast tumors in lymph nodes is associated with impaired T cell entry into these metastatic tumors. In this project, Dr. Jones and his group will test the hypothesis that relieving this compression will improve T cell entry into nodal metastases. They will use long-term intravital imaging to measure whether decompressing blood vessels enhances T cell entry into metastatic tumors. Further, they aim to combine decompression therapy with immune therapy to test whether this drug combination will enhance the killing ability of T cells that enter lymph node tumors.
Biography
Dr. Jones obtained his PhD in Immunobiology from Yale University, where he studied basic mechanisms of lymphatic vessel expansion during pathological inflammation. He completed his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he developed mouse models of lymphatic metastasis and characterized tumor progression in lymph nodes. He is currently an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. His lab studies immune suppressive mechanisms within metastatic tumors with the goal of identifying novel targetable proteins for effective therapy of advanced breast cancer.
Acknowledgment of Support
I appreciate the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s and the AACR’s commitment to supporting underrepresented minority investigators and I am honored to receive the 2022 Career Development Award to Promote Diversity and Inclusion. This support will be instrumental in allowing us to understand and overcome mechanisms of tumor-mediated T cell suppression.