Prevention There are several avenues to pursue that may decrease any one person's risk of developing breast cancer. These include specific aspects of your lifestyle, regular recommended screening depending upon your risk, and in some cases of individuals at high risk medical or surgical treatments. Scientists and Physicians at UC Irvine are working to provide better tools for understanding and assessing an individual's risk, to decrease that risk and prevent them from developing breast cancer, and to improve screening through research. Dr. Ellis Levin is studying a recently described new type of estrogen receptor that appears to play a larger role in breast cancer than normal breast tissue. Thus, this type of estrogen receptor is a potential target for ways to modify the effects of estrogens on the development of breast cancer. Dr. Bruce Blumberg is conducting studies for a new receptor for steroids, which also responds to drugs and other things in our environment, that is over-expressed in breast cancer and that modifies the immune system. He is working to identify how this receptor works, how environmental exposures might influence breast tumor development through this receptor, and how we might target it to either decrease the risk of developing cancer or change the biology of a tumor so we can treat it better. >> See also "Risk" >> See also "Screening"