Message from the Director
During 2000, the California Breast Cancer Research Program
(BCRP) awarded $16,091,618 for 70 single- and multiple-year
research projects at 22 California institutions.
This Annual Report is part of our wide-ranging efforts to make our research available to the public. On these pages, we give brief summaries of the studies we funded this year, along with summaries of studies we funded in previous years that were completed or made progress during 2000. We include results of 58 completed studies and summaries of 51 ongoing studies. We are one of the few research programs in the world to publish annual summaries of studies while they are still in progress.
Designed to push breast cancer research in new, creative directions, the BCRP is funded primarily by a California state tax on tobacco. Since 1995, the BCRP has provided a total of $97,775,174 in research funds.
The need is urgent. Every two hours, on average, a California woman dies of breast cancer. Nearly 200,000 California women have been diagnosed with or had the disease. Every woman is at risk, and every woman who has had breast cancer in the past lives with the knowledge that it can return at any time.
Breast cancer activists have played a leading role in the BCRP from the beginning. They helped write and pass the statewide legislation that created the program in 1993. Women with breast cancer and survivors of the disease are involved in all levels of the BCRP's decision making, including decisions about which projects get funded. With input from these advocates, the BCRP has established a record for funding cutting-edge studies and jump-starting new areas of research. Our goal is to fund the projects that will lead most rapidly to the end of the breast cancer epidemic.
