Every breakthrough in breast cancer research begins before anyone knows where it will lead.
It begins with a scientist asking a question that hasn’t been answered. An observation that challenges what we know. An idea with the potential to change how breast cancer is prevented, detected, or treated, but without enough evidence yet to attract traditional funding.
That early stage is also one of the most important moments to invest.
Through our signature Lynn Sage Scholars Program, the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation provides researchers with the critical funding needed to test promising ideas, generate evidence, and build the foundation for larger studies and future clinical applications. By investing early, we can give innovative science the opportunity to prove what is possible.
The program supports both Early Investigators, who are building independent research programs and pursuing new ideas at pivotal moments in their careers, and Senior Investigators, established researchers applying their expertise to bold new directions in breast cancer research.
Selected with guidance from our Medical Advisory Board, five new Lynn Sage Scholars are taking on some of breast cancer’s most difficult questions. While their work is different, each share a common goal: to create better possibilities for patients. Three are focused on triple-negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive and hardest-to-treat forms of the disease.
What if we could help the immune system find and destroy breast cancer that has spread to the brain?
Irina V. Balyasnikova, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Senior Investigator
A Novel Tri-Specific T Cell Engager for the Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Brain Metastases
When triple-negative breast cancer – one of the most difficult breast cancer subtypes to treat – spreads to the brain, treatment options become even-more limited. Dr. Irina Balyasnikova is developing a new form of immunotherapy designed specifically for this challenge.
Her approach uses an engineered molecule called a tri-specific T cell engager. Think of it as a highly specialized connector: it is designed to recognize two different markers on breast cancer cells while simultaneously recruiting the body’s own cancer-fighting T cells to attack them.
Targeting two markers is particularly important because cancer cells can change and adapt to escape treatment, and because we don’t want the T cells to target and attack the wrong cells. By giving the immune system more than one way to identify the cancer, Dr. Balyasnikova hopes to develop a powerful new tool.
The ultimate goal is to move this approach toward clinical trials and create a new treatment option for patients with triple-negative breast cancer that has metastasized to the brain.
The possibility: Harness the body’s own immune system to attack one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of metastatic breast cancer.
What if we could turn one of cancer’s broken defenses back on?
Chuan He, PhD
University of Chicago
Senior Investigator
Refolding and Reactivation of Mutant p53 in Breast Cancer Therapy
Our bodies already have powerful defenses against cancer. One of the most important is a protein called p53, which helps stop damaged cells from becoming tumors.
Unfortunately, in up to 80% of triple-negative breast cancers, p53 is mutated. Instead of protecting the body, the protein can no longer perform its critical tumor-suppressing role, and there are currently no approved therapies that directly target many of these mutations.
Dr. Chuan He is pursuing a striking idea: What if we could repair the protein rather than work around it?
His team is developing small molecules designed to restore mutant p53 to its healthy shape, essentially switching one of the body’s natural cancer defenses back on. Early laboratory studies have already shown that the approach can reactivate one of the most common p53 mutations found in triple-negative breast cancer, leading to cancer cell death while largely sparing healthy cells.
If successful, the research could lead to a first-of-its-kind targeted treatment for patients whose cancers are driven by these mutations.
The possibility: Rather than finding another way around a common cancer mutation, undo it.
What if the right support could help more young women stay on treatment?
Alex Psihogios, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Senior Investigator
A Personalized, Peer-Driven Digital Health Intervention to Promote Endocrine Therapy Adherence in Young Adult Women with or at Risk for Breast Cancer
Sometimes the challenge isn’t discovering a new drug. It’s helping patients receive the full benefit of a treatment we already know can work.
For many young women with breast cancer—or at high risk of developing it—taking hormone therapy every day for several years can significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer diagnosis or recurrence. But side effects, demanding lives, and a lack of age-appropriate support can make staying on treatment difficult.
Dr. Alex Psihogios is exploring a solution designed around how young adults actually live and communicate.
Her study combines a personalized smartphone app with peer-led social media support. The app responds to a patient’s daily symptoms with tailored guidance, while messages from other young women with similar experiences are intended to make treatment feel more manageable and less isolating.
The idea has implications far beyond convenience. A therapy can only deliver its full benefit when patients are able to stay on it. By addressing the real-world barriers young women experience, Dr. Psihogios hopes to develop an approach that can eventually be scaled to help more patients complete recommended therapy and reduce their long-term breast cancer risk.
The possibility: Pair the right treatment with the right support so more young women can receive its full protective benefit.
What if a blood sample could tell us how well breast cancer treatment is working?
Andrew Hoffmann, PhD
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Early Investigator
AI-enabled Profiling of Circulating Tumor-Immune Ecosystems Predicts Breast Cancer Outcomes
Knowing whether breast cancer is responding to treatment can require repeated imaging and complex testing. Dr. Andrew Hoffmann is investigating whether some of those answers may also be circulating in a patient’s blood and can be uncovered by new technologies.
When cancer cells break away from a tumor, some enter the bloodstream. At the same time, the immune system is responding to the disease. Dr. Hoffmann is using artificial intelligence to study both cancer and immune cells and is looking for patterns in the relationship that could reveal whether a cancer is responding to therapy, progressing, or remaining in remission.
What makes the approach especially interesting is that it doesn’t look at cancer in isolation. Unlike blood tests that focus only on measuring whether tumor DNA is present, his research examines both the cancer cells and the immune environment surrounding them.
If successful, this work could eventually provide physicians with a faster, less invasive, and more accessible way to monitor a patient’s disease and identify signs of progression.
The possibility: Turn a blood sample into a more complete window into how cancer is behaving and how a patient is responding to treatment.
What if AI could tell us not only what will happen, but why?
Madeleine Torcasso, PhD
University of Chicago
Early Investigator
Decoding Latent Representations of Pathology Foundation Models in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful at recognizing patterns in cancer that humans may not be able to see. But there is a significant challenge: some AI systems can make accurate predictions without physicians and scientists knowing exactly how they arrived at them.
Dr. Madeleine Torcasso wants to open that “black box.”
Her research focuses on triple-negative breast cancer and asks what biological characteristics AI is actually seeing when it predicts whether a patient will respond to treatment or whether a cancer is likely to progress.
By connecting an AI prediction back to real features within a patient’s tumor tissue, Dr. Torcasso’s work could accomplish something bigger than making an algorithm easier to understand. It could reveal previously unrecognized characteristics of breast cancer itself.
Those discoveries could ultimately help physicians personalize treatment, identify new biomarkers that predict outcomes, and even uncover new possibilities for future therapies.
The possibility: Use artificial intelligence not simply to predict the future of a patient’s cancer, but to uncover new biology that could help change it.
Giving Bold Ideas the Chance to Become Breakthroughs
Before a promising discovery can become a clinical trial, a new treatment, or a new standard of care, researchers need the opportunity to test whether the idea works. And they need someone willing to invest before the outcome is certain.
That’s the role Lynn Sage donors help make possible.
Over the next two years, these five Scholars will explore very different frontiers of breast cancer research: teaching the immune system to attack metastatic disease, restoring a critical cancer-fighting protein, helping young women stay on lifesaving therapy, using blood to better monitor disease, and unlocking what artificial intelligence can teach us about cancer biology.
Some discoveries may lead to larger studies. Some may identify entirely new questions. And some may ultimately help change how patients are treated.
That’s how science moves forward.
We invest early because today’s bold question could become tomorrow’s breakthrough.