Fall 2025
By Hannah White Hannah
METAvivor has awarded three grants totaling $850,000 to advance metastatic breast cancer research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. More than half of this funding—$450,000—supports a project led by Rinath Jeselsohn, MD, which aims to develop a clinically accessible tool to help physicians predict which patients with advanced hormone receptor-positive breast cancer will respond to a common treatment combination. By analyzing routine clinical and tumor data, the tool—based on a machine learning algorithm—aims to guide more personalized treatment choices and reduce exposure to less effective therapies. The study will also explore how the immune environment of tumors may contribute to treatment resistance.
The remaining two grants of $200,000 each support early career investigators Stefania Morganti, MD, and Paolo Tarantino, MD, PhD. Morganti is investing the role of minimal residual disease via circulating tumor DNA in patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and exceptional response to therapy. Tarantino’s research focuses on innovating and refining methods to predict responses to antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapies in patients with advanced breast cancer. Tarantino said, “Antibody-Drug Conjugates have had a transformative impact on the prognosis of MBC, but we’re still unable to adequately tailor their use. With the critical support of METAvivor, we plan to leverage cutting-edge technologies to learn from our patients’ samples and develop biomarkers for precision ADC treatment”
Kelly Shanahan, MD, President of METAvivor, emphasizes the organization’s commitment. She said, “METAvivor funds the best in research focused on people whose breast cancer has already metastasized, which is why nine Dana-Farber investigators have been awarded METAvivor research awards since 2019, more than any other institution. As someone living with MBC, I am grateful for the brilliant minds at Dana Farber who are developing treatments that will help me and people like me live longer and better.”
“METAvivor funds the best in research focused on people whose breast cancer has already metastasized, which is why nine Dana-Farber investigators have been awarded METAvivor research awards since 2019, more than any other institution. As someone living with MBC, I am grateful for the brilliant minds at Dana Farber who are developing treatments that will help me and people like me live longer and better.”
Kelly Shanahan, MD, President of METAvivor
Through these grants, METAvivor continues to make a significant impact on MBC, fostering advancements that promise to improve patient outcomes and extend lives.