There were 7.8 million women alive who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the past 5 years (as of the end of 2020), making it the world’s most prevalent cancer, according to WHO.

October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual international campaign, recognizable by its pink theme color, which aims at raising awareness about Breast Cancer and promoting its research, screening and prevention.

Helix Animation joins in the efforts by sharing a scientific 3D animated video we developed for the University of Innsbruck EUTOPS institute, to visually explain and complement their research paper published in the impactful Genome Medicine Journal, which describes the potential for individualised breast cancer prevention and risk monitoring using antiprogestins and a novel type of epigenetic test, the WID-Breast29.

In their research, they have identified that BRCA mutation carriers exhibit higher levels of the hormone progesterone during their menstrual cycle than women without a BRCA mutation. Higher cumulative progesterone levels may trigger proliferation of cells in the breast, in particular those that are often the cell of origin for the aggressive triple negative breast cancer called luminal progenitor cells. Using epigenetic features on the DNA, called DNA methylation, they were able to quantify the number of "aged" luminal progenitor cells in the breast. 
 

You can learn more about this novel test, called WID-Breast29 on their website and read the full research paper published in Genome Medicine.
 

Helix Animation Team