We propose to establish the UNC Interdisciplinary Program in Breast Cancer Research to serve as a national Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer for the National Cancer Institute. The UNC SPORE will have a unique set of goals, objectives, and programs that capitalize on and extend in novel ways the existing excellence in multidisciplinary breast cancer research at UNC and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. The goal of the UNC SPORE is to reduce breast cancer mortality and incidence in North Carolina through an interdisciplinary program of research and intervention that: 1. Integrates efforts in cancer prevention and control, molecular epidemiology, clinical research, and laboratory clinical research; and 2. Targets behavioral and biological issues relevant to Black women. The six primary objectives of the UNC SPORE are: 1. To identify the determinants of the Black/White gap in breast cancer mortality in North Carolina, and then to use novel community and provider interventions to close that gap; 2. To initiate a long-term, population-based study of breast cancer in a defined North Carolina population containing 1.6 million women, 27% of whom are minorities; 3. To combine molecular biology and epidemiology in the investigation of the environmental determinants of and genetic predispositions to breast cancer in blacks and whites in the defined population; 4. To improve the treatment, quality-of-life, and prognosis of late-stage breast cancer, a common presentation among Black women in North Carolina; 5. To develop new clinical markers for neoplastic proliferation of breast cancer cells; and 6. To complement the NCI and other SPOREs in the national effort to reduce breast cancer mortality and incidence with a focus on minority issues, development of a defined population, and research programs in cancer prevention and control, molecular epidemiology, clinical research, and the isolation and molecular analysis of novel regulatory genes.
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