Spring 2005 Newsletter: Breast Cancer Weapons

Dr. Elwood Jensen

In 2004, Dr. Elwood Jensen won the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation award for Basic Medical Research; the Lasker Award is commonly known as “America’s Nobel.”

Dr. Jensen is one of three scientists whose discoveries revolutionized the field of endocrinology and metabolism.

Dr. Jensen’s work had a rapid, direct and lasting impact on treatment and prevention of breast cancer. Dr Jensen, the Charles B. Huggins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago, was a premier cancer scientist who made headlines for his discovery in the 1960s and 1970s that anti-estrogen drugs decreased breast cancer tumors.

The estrogen receptor assay provides an important guide for selecting appropriate treatment for breast cancer patients. A sample of tissue is taken from a breast tumor at the time of surgery; the sample is tested to find if the tissue binds to and retains the female hormone estrogen. If the tissue is estrogen receptive, hormone manipulation (example: anti-estrogen drugs) can be used as a treatment.