Anna Beck, MD, an assistant professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at the University of Washington, has been selected for the university’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, BIRCWH provides mentored career development for early-stage investigators conducting research on women’s health and sex differences. The NIH funds the program through an institutional K12 grant; the University of Washington’s BIRCWH program is administered by the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.
As a BIRCWH scholar, Beck will receive more than $355,000 to support research on lobular neoplasias, breast lesions that indicate increased risk for future cancer.
“Women with lobular neoplasia have a greater than 20% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer,” Beck said. “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, which can significantly impact quality of life, and our current inability to predict which women with lobular neoplasia are at greatest risk and would most benefit from treatment.”
Beck’s prior work suggests that breast tissue in patients with lobular neoplasia may harbor a “field defect” — tissue that appears near-normal but contains molecular alterations that increase cancer susceptibility. She will investigate these underlying molecular changes with the aim of developing biomarkers to better predict individual risk after a diagnosis of lobular neoplasia.
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