91st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research

A number of scientists were honoured at the meeting for their outstanding contributions to cancer research. Charles Sherr (St Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA) was awarded the Pezcoller International Cancer Research Award for his work on the mechanisms of cell growth control and neoplastic transformation. The Bruce F Cain Memorial Award was given to Axel Ullrich (Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany) who has successfully translated his pioneering work on tyrosine kinase receptors, such as HER2/neu, into actual treatment strategies. Edison T Liu (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA) was also recognized for his work in establishing a correlation between HER2/neu overexpression and those breast cancers that have an unfavourable prognosis and high probability of responding to doxorubicin therapy. Finally, the prestigious GHA Clowes Memorial Award was presented to Elizabeth Blackburn (University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA) for her pioneering work in the discovery of telomerase and its potential role in cancer.Herein we outline a few of the many provocative studies discussed at the meeting. Although some of the topics discussed below are specific to the breast, others addressing global mechanisms of tumour progression are also considered because they may be appropriate paradigms for understanding and treating breast cancer in the future.The role of steroids and their receptors in breast cancer progression was the focus of a number of presentations.In an informative and entertaining plenary session talk, Malcolm Pike (USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA) discussed the concept of breast cancer prevention through hormonal manipulation (eg early full-term pregnancy or use of the oral contraceptive pill). This theme was followed up in a subsequent mini-symposium in which a number of animal studies that examined the timing of oestrogen exposure in breast cancer risk were presented. Ana Caba