Are you looking to tackle a new challenge or set yourself a lockdown goal?

Take up the Lockdown Challenge for a CURE and help raise funds for vital breast cancer research. You choose your challenge make it as hard or as easy as you like. Simply set up your fundraising page and share it with your friends and family.

The Health Research Council of New Zealand, Breast Cancer Cure and Breast Cancer Foundation NZ have funded three new research projects focused on breast cancer in New Zealand.

The funding aims to improve quality of life and survival in breast cancer in New Zealand. The overall research objectives and priorities for this year’s investment include a focus on achieving health equity and improving health outcomes for communities disproportionately affected by breast cancer.

More than $728,000 was awarded to three innovative projects. See below for this year’s successful recipients.

Join us in Dunedin for a night of New Zealand’s finest fashion from top designers!

Be hosted by Shane Cortese, enjoy food and beverages served throughout the night, live and silent auctions and hear the latest research developments from our Beast Cancer Cure researcher.

One Night. One Show. Top Designers. All to support research into a cure.

Just in time for the 20th anniversary of World Milk Day this June, Breast Cancer Cure (BCC) is once again partnering with Dairy Women’s Network for its new campaign ‘Milk for a Cure’. The new initiative emphasises how a pint sized donation can have a huge impact on the lives of others.

While this year’s World Milk Day might be virtual, we are still raising a glass to all those who love and work the land to bring us the best delicious and nutritious milk. 

We are all facing significant challenges as we head into week 4 of the COVID-19 lockdown.

At Breast Cancer Cure we care deeply about the health of New Zealanders. We have postponed until the foreseeable future our Fashion for a Cure fundraising events. With more than 90% of our income dependent on events, this leaves Breast Cancer Cure and the life-saving medical research that we exist to fund, as well as lives saved, in a very vulnerable position.

As a result, we have launched a CURE CRISIS APPEAL to ensure we continue to support our scientists and their essential breast cancer research projects.

A team of New Zealand scientists from the University of Auckland, led by Dr Annette Lasham, have identified a novel combination of plasma biomarkers, that could have a pivotal impact on treatment decisions after a diagnosis of breast cancer – all via a simple blood test. 

Fay Sowerby, Chair of Breast Cancer Cure, says that responding to an accurate assessment of recurrence risk in patients with breast cancer is critical to reducing worrying mortality rates.

Lasham, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology at the University’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, comments, “Prognostic tests that can identify women likely to experience early relapse are urgently required.”

Recently published in the medical journal, Clinical Breast Cancer, her team, including molecular biologist Sandra Fitzgerald and statistics expert Dr Nick Knowlton, have demonstrated that the pre-operative levels of a new plasma RNA marker, miR-923, and the levels of a circulating protein biomarker CA 15-3 at the time of surgery for breast cancer, when combined were strongly associated with patient prognosis, irrespective of treatment after surgery. CA 15-3 has previously been identified as a breast cancer prognostic marker in international studies, but it is not (yet) approved for this type of clinical use in New Zealand and many other countries worldwide.

Lasham says, “Identifying the likelihood of relapse could help patients and their clinicians to make informed, individualised treatment decisions. This novel combination used as a prognostic biomarker test could identify which women might require more aggressive treatment after surgery for breast cancer.”

Phillipa Green, CEO of Breast Cancer Cure, a funder of the project since 2009, adds, “This work is extremely important for the 20% of patients whose cancer recurs one to three years after diagnosis.  It often takes them by surprise so to be able to front foot the likelihood of recurrence will be a huge advancement in breast cancer treatment.”

Lasham adds, “A minimally invasive blood test is affordable and accessible within our constrained health system, so we are excited about the positive impact that these findings could have.”

Green comments, “We welcome the publication of this study. The HRC Breast Cancer Research Partnership continues to fund the project today to validate the results in a much larger group of samples from New Zealand breast cancer patients.”

Sowerby says, “Breast Cancer Cure is dedicated to funding visionary researchers such as Annette so that we continue to make advances across the cancer pathway from prevention to diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment– not only here in New Zealand, but around the world.  We celebrate these findings with Annette and her team, and encourage all New Zealanders to continue to help us in our quest towards a better understanding of breast cancer to make it a survivable disease.”