Australian researchers make cancer discovery

4 August 2009

Scientists from the Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research have discovered that luminal progenitor cells are the likely source of basal-like breast tumors.

This finding, which represents a major shift in the way scientists think breast cancer develops, has just been published in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.

The Australian researchers found that luminal progenitor cells are likely to be responsible for breast cancers that develop in women carrying mutations in the gene BRCA1, a mutation found in between ten and twenty per cent of women with hereditary breast cancer. Women with BRCA1 mutations often develop ‘basal-like’ breast cancer – a particularly aggressive form of the disease.

The Australian scientists’ research has been supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Stem Cell Centre, the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, the US Department of Defense, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.