The American Cancer Society (ACS) helps people with breast cancer in every community. Our research programs have played a role in many of the prevention, screening, and treatment advances that save lives from breast cancer today. And, we continue to fund research to help save even more lives in the future.
The United States-based Cancer Risk Estimates Related to Susceptibility (CARRIERS) consortium was established to determine the risk of cancers associated with mutations in the known predisposition genes.
Several ACS staff scientists and ACS grantees have contributed to the work.
“The ACS Cancer Prevention Studies have played a role in identifying or validating every known common genetic variant for breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancers. This was the first large study to look at the prevalence of breast-cancer predisposition genes in the general population.”
Genes that are vulnerable to cancer-causing changes (mutations), which are sometimes inherited from a parent. Several dozen cancer-predisposition genes have been identified, and about 5% to 10% of all cancers result directly from those inherited.
For example, BRCA1 and BRCA2 are inherited cancer predisposition genes, and mutations on them increase the risk of developing certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, and prostate.
Read on to learn more about the findings of this study.
The ACS funds scientists who conduct research about breast cancer at medical schools, universities, research institutes, and hospitals throughout the United States. We use a rigorous and independent peer review process to select the most innovative research projects proposals to fund.
The grant statistics to the left are as of August 1, 2023.