Women who have had children are in part protected against the development of breast cancer. This talk discusses the changes that occur in the immune cells of the breasts of mothers compared to women who have not had children. The pregnant breast has increased cytotoxic, tissue-resident memory T cells that play a role in protecting the breast against tumour growth.
Dr Lippey is a breast surgeon providing specialist care and compassion to people requiring oncoplastic and reconstructive breast surgery. She completed her general surgery fellowship through the Austin Hospital and then underwent post-fellowship training through BreastSurgANZ at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Royal Perth and Fiona Stanley Hospitals.
Her research interests include early breast cancer, tailored breast screening and ductal carcinoma in situ, risk communication, patient reported outcome measures as well as oncoplastic and reconstructive surgery. She was the 2015 recipient of the John Collins Medal from the Australian New Zealand Breast Cancer Trials Group for young surgical researchers, a prior recipient of a National Breast Cancer Foundation practitioner grant, as well as a Royal Australasian College of Surgeons scholarship. She is also an investigator on the MRFF funded BRAIx (Transforming Breast Cancer Screening using Artificial Intelligence) trial using AI mammographic interpretation software for screening mammograms.
A/Prof Britt leads the Breast Cancer Risk and Prevention Lab within the Cancer Evolution and Metastasis Program. She obtained her PhD from Monash University working on female reproductive endocrinology and undertook a CJ Martin fellowship at the Institute of Cancer Research (UK) under the mentorship of Alan Ashworth and Matthew Smalley, where she began working on breast cancer.
Her work has helped define why women in today’s society have an increased incidence of breast cancer. Her lab has been instrumental in developing pre-clinical models for prevention based research. A/Prof Britt has held Early and Mid-Career Victorian Cancer Agency Fellowships and a National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) Early Career fellowship. Her work has been supported by NHMRC, Equity Trustees, NBCF, and the Basser Centre (USA).
