M. Piccart et al., The Breast International Group: a new spirit of collaboration in breast cancer research for the new millennium, EUR J CANC, 36(14), 2000, pp. 1733-1736
The Breast International Group (B.I.G.-aisbl), an official non-profit organ
isation since 1999, is an association whose members are well established cl
inical breast cancer research groups located around the world. Inspired by
the American 'Intergroup' model, B.I.G. functions as a 'consortium of conso
rtia': it is a partnership among independent co-operative groups, each with
its own extensive network of affiliated centres, hospitals, laboratories a
nd investigators. Through B.I.G., groups draw on combined resources to redu
ce the wasteful duplication of efforts and to achieve results in breast can
cer research impossible for any individual group in a comparable period of
time. International collaboration through a mechanism like B.I.G. will beco
me increasingly frequent in the future, especially as we move towards explo
ring therapies targeted at subgroups of patients with specific tumour molec
ular profiles. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.