Summer 2026
By Jane Anderson
In support of their mission to prevent and cure breast cancer, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) recently made grants totaling approximately $3.3 million to 17 of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s investigators, who are advancing the world’s most promising research in the field. BCRF-funded investigators include:
- Myles Brown, MD;
- Lewis Cantley, PhD;
- Alan D’Andrea, MD;
- Temidayo Fadelu, MD, MPH;
- Judy Garber, MD, MPH;
- William G. Kaelin Jr., MD;
- Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD;
- Jose Pablo Leone, MD;
- Nancy Lin, MD;
- Filipa Lynce, MD;
- Ursula Matulonis, MD;
- Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, MHCM;
- Ann Partridge, MD, MPH;
- Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD;
- Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH;
- and Jean Zhao, PhD.
Since its founding in 1993 by Evelyn H. Lauder and Larry Norton, MD, BCRF has become the largest private funder of breast cancer research in the world. BCRF-funded investigators have been behind every major breakthrough in breast cancer research over the last three decades. “We are honored to support such an incredible cohort of Dana-Farber researchers, who share our dedication to making significant advances in breast cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship,” said BCRF Chief Scientific Officer Dorraya El-Ashry, PhD.
We are honored to support such an incredible cohort of Dana-Farber researchers, who share our dedication to making significant advances in breast cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship.
Chief Scientific Officer Dorraya El-Ashry, PhD, Breast Cancer Research Foundation
As a BCRF grantee and the Division Chief of Breast Oncology, Tolaney is using her grant to explore if a specific treatment combination could lead to better outcomes in select patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. Recently, Tolaney and others conducted studies that suggest sacituzumab govitecan, an FDA-approved antibody-drug conjugate, might work better if paired with pembrolizumab, a drug that enhances the cancer-fighting activity of the body’s immune cells. Based on these results, Tolaney believes that combining sacituzumab govitecan and pembrolizumab would lead to greater anti-tumor immune activity in patients with HR-positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
To test this hypothesis, Tolaney led a clinical trial in which participants with pretreated HR-positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer received either sacituzumab govitecan and pembrolizumab or sacituzumab govitecan alone. The team is analyzing tumor samples from patients who participated in the trial to determine if there are biomarkers that can predict which cancer cells respond to either treatment approach. Overall, this study will help researchers determine whether the therapeutic combination recruits and activates immune cells more effectively than sacituzumab govitecan alone in certain patients. Because of pioneering research like this, Tolaney received the prestigious Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research in 2025 from the American Association of Cancer Research. That award recognizes a scientist whose novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact in the field.
“Thanks to the BCRF support, we have been able to make tremendous progress in understanding what treatment approaches might work best against metastatic breast cancer,” said Tolaney. “I am deeply grateful for the foundation’s unwavering commitment to improving outcomes for all patients with this disease and for their longstanding leadership in funding this important research.”