Congratulations are in order for Division of Surgical Oncology Assistant Professor Anna Beck, MD, who was recently awarded a position in UW’s 2025-2027 cohort of the Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) scholars program. Created by the federal Office of Research on Women’s Health in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the BIRCWH program provides mentored career development for early-stage investigators who are conducting research on women’s health and sex differences. The NIH awards the BIRCWH program as a prestigious institutional career development (K12) grant, with funded institutions then competitively selecting scholars to participate in the program. UW’s BIRCWH program is administered by the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR).
As a BIRCWH scholar, Beck will receive over $355,000 to support her research on lobular neoplasias, which are specific types of breast lesions that are markers of future breast cancer risk.
“Women with lobular neoplasia have a greater than 20% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer,” said Beck. “Their risk of future breast cancer can be reduced by 50% if they take anti-estrogen therapy, but only 8-19% of patients do so. The low uptake of this therapy is likely a combination of the side effects of the drugs, which can significantly impact patient quality of life, and our current inability to predict which women with lobular neoplasia are at the greatest risk of future breast cancer and thus could most benefit from anti-estrogen therapy.”
Based on her prior research, Beck believes that the breast tissue of patients with lobular neoplasia harbors a “field defect” that predisposes the tissue to cancer development. A field defect refers to tissue that appears on the surface to be normal or near-normal but actually harbors underlying molecular differences that make it more prone to developing cancer. Beck plans to further investigate these underlying molecular changes, with the long-term goal of using this information to develop biomarkers that can accurately predict an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer following a diagnosis of lobular neoplasia.
“I’m so thankful for the support of my scientific mentors, Dr. Wei Xu and Dr. Noelle LoConte, and my career mentor, Dr. Lee Wilke, who is generously providing $25,000 in matching funds through the Hendricks Professorship in Breast Cancer Research to support this project,” said Beck. “Further, I’m honored to have been selected as a UW BIRCWH Scholar and incredibly excited to use this opportunity to move the field of lobular neoplasia research forward.”