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Locations


Breast cancer research activities are located across Manchester and the MBC acts as an umbrella organisation for both clinicians and non-clinicians specialising in this area. Collaboration is key to the success of the MBC and its research.

Since the amalgamation of the key breast research groups in Manchester in 2005, the MBC has continued to develop and expand. The centre is sited in several major research organisations in Manchester: 

Prevent Breast Cancer

The Nightingale and Prevent Breast Cancer Centre is a £2 million state of the art research and screening centre, based at University Hospital South Manchester (UHSM) in Wythenshawe. It is a world class facility leading the way in breast cancer early diagnosis, prediction and prevention research.

Europe’s first purpose built breast cancer prevention centre, it contains specially designed consultation, examination, counselling, mammography, radiology and ultrasound rooms. There are also rooms dedicated to pathology, prosthesis, lymphodema and bone densitometry. As well as this, it provides training facilities aimed at addressing the shortage of breast cancer specialists and houses many researchers looking at ways to predict and prevent breast cancer.

Breast Cancer Now Research Unit

As an integral part of the Manchester Breast Centre, the Breast Cancer Now Research Unit, which is based in the Division of Cancer Sciences at The University of Manchester, has been directed by Dr Rob Clarke since 2016.

The objective of the Unit is to improve treatment and prevention of breast cancer. The Unit's research goals are to delineate breast epithelial cell behaviour within its tissue context and to determine how the breakdown of normal cell interactions with the local environment result in perturbed tissue organisation, proliferation, and survival of early breast cancers and its metastasis. This information aims to predict patients that will develop breast cancer and identify those who will become resistant to therapy and recur. It also aims to identify new therapeutic targets for both the prevention and treatment of the disease.

Recent publications from the Unit:

Eyre R, Alférez DG, Santiago-Gómez A, Spence K, McConnell JC, Hart C, Simões BM, Lefley D, Tulotta C, Storer J, Gurney A, Clarke N, Brown MD, Howell SJ, Sims AH, Farnie G, Ottewell PD and Clarke RB (2019) Microenvironmental IL1β promotes metastatic colonisation of breast cancer cells in the bone via activation of Wnt, Nature Communications, 10:5016.

Santiago-Gomez A, Kedward T, Simões BM, Dragoni I, NicAmhlaoibh R, Trivier E, Sabin V, Simoes BM, Gee JM, Sims AH, Howell SJ and Clarke RB (2019) PAK4 regulates stemness and progression in endocrine resistant ER-positive metastatic breast cancer, Cancer Letters, 458:66-75.

Seminars


Date:  15 April 202400:00
Speaker:  Christine Desmedt
From:  KU Leuven, Belgium
Title:  TBC
Host:  Rob Clarke
 
Date:  24 May 202415:00
Speaker:  Dr Gerald Lip
From:  NHS Grampian & University of Aberdeen
Title:  AI in breast cancer screening - are we there yet?
Host:  Sue Astley