Bronx, N.Y. – – November 03, 2026 -- The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a five-year, $10 million grant to a multi-institutional team led by Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D., of Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC). The money will fund research into the biological processes behind breast cancer relapse and into ways to predict and prevent recurrence.

The NCI estimates that up to 685,000 people die from breast cancer worldwide each year. Nearly all fatal cases involve disease that returns in other organs years or decades after surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

Project targets dormant cells that survive treatment

The work focuses on early disseminated cancer cells that remain dormant after a primary tumor is removed or treated. Even a small, localized tumor may already have produced micrometastases, which are cancer cells that have spread but cannot be found by screening or diagnostic tests. These cells can later reawaken and cause recurrence.

Researchers will analyze clinical data and tissue samples from patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), an early, non-invasive form of breast cancer. They will study the mechanisms that allow cells to spread early and test whether specific cell characteristics are linked to later relapse.

"By closing gaps in our understanding of breast cancer relapse, our goal is to identify who is most at risk of recurrence and find ways to intercept cancer before it returns," said Aguirre-Ghiso, who directs MECCC's Cancer Dormancy Institute.

Stanford, Columbia, Mount Sinai and Wisconsin join Einstein investigators

The team spans cancer biology, pathology, epidemiology, imaging and bioinformatics. Aguirre-Ghiso, Christina Curtis, Ph.D., of Stanford University, and Jianlong Wang, Ph.D., of Columbia University, will lead a project on the molecular signaling that regulates early dissemination. It will also examine how cancer cells interact with immune and other cells in their microenvironment.

David R. Entenberg, Ph.D., co-director of the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics Center, will co-lead a second project with Miriam Merad, M.D., Ph.D., of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. It will study how different macrophage populations contribute to cancer cell dissemination.

Epidemiology, imaging and bioinformatics cores support the analysis

• Maja H. Oktay, M.D., Ph.D., will identify biomarkers tied to local and distant recurrence in DCIS samples.
• Thomas E. Rohan, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., will lead epidemiological analyses of the patient cohorts.
• Amy Trentham-Dietz, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will contribute expertise on breast cancer risk, screening outcomes and survival.
• Einstein's Nanoengineering and Imaging Device Core, led by Entenberg and co-led by Nathaniel Cady, Ph.D., of the University at Albany, will use in vivo imaging to identify and track disseminating cancer cells in living tissue.
• Deyou Zheng, Ph.D., will oversee bioinformatic analysis of genomic, epigenomic and proteomic datasets.
• Xiaonan Xue, Ph.D., director of MECCC's Biostatistics Shared Resource, will oversee biostatistical analyses, including time to recurrence and risk-prediction models.

The study, "Mechanisms of Early Breast Cancer Local and Distant Relapse," is supported by NCI grant 1P01CA295557.