Breast cancer expert Brooke Emerling, PhD, an assistant professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys, has been named a Forbeck Scholar by the William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation. This prestigious award recognizes early-career cancer researchers for their achievements, research and dedication to the field. As an award winner, Emerling receives rare access to several three-day “think tank” events featuring the world’s top cancer clinicians and scientists.
“My goal is to create therapies that help more breast cancer patients survive cancer,” says Emerling. “The opportunity to discuss my ideas and research with the absolute leaders in my field is incredible and only accelerates my work toward that end.”
Emerling is working to find treatments for triple-negative breast cancer, which is treatable only with standard surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. The lack of specific treatments means that it has a mortality rate three times higher than the other types of breast cancer. Emerling is working to find a personalized medicine that blocks several proteins she identified that allow the triple-negative breast cancer to grow, called PI5P4Ks.
The William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation was established in 1985 by George and Jennifer Forbeck in honor of their son, who succumbed to a rare childhood cancer at age 11. Today the foundation promotes advances in cancer research through collaboration. The foundation began the Forbeck Scholar award as a way to recognize early-career cancer researchers with great future promise. Past Forbeck Scholar award winners hail from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and other top-tier institutes.