Olufunmilayo Olopade

Title: Advances in breast cancer: pathways to personalized medicine.

With an increasing global burden of breast cancer, cancer control efforts in the post-genome era should be focused at developing novel risk assessment and treatment strategies that will further reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. The discovery that mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancers has radically transformed our understanding of the genetic basis of breast cancer, leading to improved management of high-risk women. The immediate challenge is to learn how to use the molecular characteristics of an individual and their tumor to improve detection and treatment, and ultimately to prevent the development of breast cancer, not only in developed countries, but throughout the world.