SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), an SABCS cosponsor, will honor two researchers for their significant contributions to breast cancer research at SABCS 2025, held December 9-12 at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas.
2025 AACR Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer Research
Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, is the recipient of the 2025 AACR Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer Research, supported by Aflac, Inc. This award was established to recognize outstanding science that has inspired, or has the potential to inspire, new perspectives on the etiology, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of breast cancer.
Park is director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Benjamin F. Byrd, Jr. Chair in Oncology, and professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
He is being recognized for his groundbreaking research that has transformed our understanding of breast cancer at both the molecular and clinical level. His work has defined how PI3K/AKT signaling becomes deregulated during tumor progression, providing critical insights into therapeutic resistance, invasion, and metastasis. Most notably, Park pioneered the use of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) as a minimally invasive biomarker. This approach has revolutionized precision cancer medicine by enabling clinicians to detect genetic mutations, monitor disease progression, and track minimal residual disease in patients with breast cancer, in turn making it possible to identify metastatic potential in early-stage patients before disease progression.
2025 AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research
Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, is the recipient of the 2025 AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research, supported by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. This award was established to honor an investigator whose novel and significant work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the etiology, detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of breast cancer. Such work may involve any discipline across the continuum of biomedical research, including basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiological studies.
Tolaney is chief of the Division of Breast Oncology, associate director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers, and senior physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is also associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
She is being recognized for pioneering work dedicated to optimizing targeted therapies for HER2-positive breast cancer through innovative clinical trials. Specifically, Tolaney’s APT trial demonstrated the efficacy of a less intensive regimen involving paclitaxel and trastuzumab for early-stage, node-negative disease, effectively transforming national and international clinical treatment guidelines. Her leadership in establishing biomarker-driven personalized therapy approaches for cancer, including the development of CDK4/6 inhibitors, has significantly advanced care in both metastatic and adjuvant settings, shaping the future of precision oncology for patients with breast cancer.