Easton honoured with inaugural AACR Outstanding Investigator award in breast cancer research

Douglas Easton, Ph.D., whose international studies in breast cancer explained the genetic patterns and causes of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations which indicate a personís risk for breast cancer, has been selected to receive the inaugural American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Outstanding Investigator Award in Breast Cancer Research.

This award, funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, recognizes an investigator whose novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the causes, detection, diagnosis, treatment or prevention of breast cancer.

Easton, professor of genetic epidemiology and director of the Cancer Research UK Genetic Epidemiology Unit in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, has been selected for his national and international studies of the genetic causes and patterns of breast cancer. As a result of his work, Easton established the Breast Cancer Linage Consortium, which provided the first estimates of breast and ovarian cancer risk in BRCA1 mutation carriers and developed a risk model that is used daily in clinics worldwide.

Most recently, Easton assisted in identifying five breast cancer genes located in specific areas on the chromosome which impact breast cancer susceptibility, none of which had previously been associated with breast cancer: FGFR2, TNRC9, MAP3K1, LSP1 and a locus on 8q. Subsequently, he demonstrated how variations in these loci are associated with increased risk of breast cancer in BRCA mutation carriers. These observations may become important in counseling women who carry the BRCA mutation, and will be important for risk stratification in the general population.

Easton received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in mathematics from the University of Cambridge. He earned a doctorate in Genetic Epidemiology from the University of London. In 1980 Dr. Easton was recruited to a research fellow position at the Institute of Cancer Research. In 1995, Dr. Easton moved to Cambridge to become director of the Cancer Research Genetic Epidemiology Unit.

ecancertv interview with Douglas Easton coming soon