Biology & Life Sciences

Up For A Challenge (U4C) – Stimulating Innovation in Breast Cancer Genetic Epidemiology

Published May 30, 2018 Curated Collections

Breast cancer remains a major public health problem, with more than 250,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths estimated to occur in women in the U.S. in 2017. In 2015, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched this challenge to inspire novel cross-disciplinary approaches to more fully decipher the genomic basis of breast cancer. The results from U4C demonstrate the utility of a prize competition to encourage innovation in breast cancer genetic epidemiology and ultimately into the biology of breast cancer and beyond. The NCI announced the winners in October 2016, and articles from four of the top-ranking projects appear in this special collection, published by PLOS Genetics.

Image Credit: Image courtesy of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute

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Competition Overview
Winning Projects

Competition Overview

Image credit
Gregory P. Copenhaver, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, United States of America.

PLOS Genetics Up For A Challenge (U4C): Stimulating innovation in breast cancer genetic epidemiology
September 28, 2017 Leah Mechanic, Sara Lindström, Kenneth Daily, Solveig Sieberts, Christopher Amos, Huann-Sheng Chen, Nancy Cox, Marina Dathe, Eric Feuer, Michael Guertin, Joshua Hoffman, Yunxian Liu, Jason Moore, Chad Myers, Marylyn Ritchie, Joellen Schildkraut, Frederick Schumacher, John Witte, Wen Wang, Scott Williams, Elizabeth Gillanders

Winning Projects

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pgen.1006690

PLOS Genetics Cis-eQTL-based trans-ethnic meta-analysis reveals novel genes associated with breast cancer risk
March 31, 2017 Joshua D. Hoffman, Rebecca E. Graff, Nima C. Emami, Caroline G. Tai, Michael N. Passarelli, Donglei Hu, Scott Huntsman, Dexter Hadley, Lancelote Leong, Arunabha Majumdar, Noah Zaitlen, Elad Ziv, John S. Witte
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pgen.1006973

PLOS Genetics Pathway-based discovery of genetic interactions in breast cancer
September 28, 2017 Wen Wang, Zack Z. Xu, Michael Costanzo, Charles Boone, Carol A. Lange, Chad L. Myers
Image credit
Yunxian Liu and colleagues

PLOS Genetics Identification of Breast Cancer Associated Variants That Modulate Transcription Factor Binding
September 28, 2017 Yunxian Liu, Ninad Walavalkar, Mikhail Dozmorov, Stephen Rich, Mete Civelek, Michael Guertin
Image credit
Guimin Gao and colleagues

PLOS Genetics Trans-ethnic Predicted Expression Genome-wide Association Analysis Identifies a Gene for Estrogen Receptor-negative Breast Cancer
September 28, 2017 Guimin Gao, Brandon Pierce, Olufunmilayo Olopade, Hae Kyung Im, Dezheng Huo