Titles and Affiliations
Chief, Division of Breast Surgery
Director, Interdisciplinary Breast Program
New York Presbyterian Hospital Network
Research area
Addressing racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer while also providing a platform to increase engagement of African American physicians in research.
Impact
African American women are underrepresented as patients and as clinicians in breast cancer research, even though breast cancer mortality rates are 40 percent higher in African Americans compared to white American women. Socioeconomic disadvantages that create barriers to healthcare access are more prevalent in the African American community but do not fully explain this disparity in survival rates. Dr. Newman leads the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes (ICSBCS), a global program that has studied this disparity for more than 20 years. She focuses on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) among diverse patients in the United States and across different regions of Africa, aiming to understand how genetic African ancestry may contribute to these outcomes. As part of this work, Dr. Newman is engaging African American breast surgeons in the collection of clinically annotated breast tissue samples from their diverse patient populations, providing a resource for genetic and tumor research in the biology of breast cancer in African American women.
Progress Thus Far
The ICSBCS biobank houses a unique collection of tumor and tissue samples from internationally diverse patients. This work has included landmark studies linking West African genetic ancestry to a hereditary risk of TNBC, and the program continues to build research capacity in Africa through training programs that also strengthen care delivery. Dr. Newman and her team launched a new initiative in partnership with the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS), through which African American members will contribute samples from their patients to the ICSBCS biobank, expanding the program’s reach while strengthening the diversity of the broader oncology research community. The program continues to host annual breast cancer symposia with its African partner sites, conduct monthly training sessions for its members, and accrue tissue samples from consenting patients. Current research includes studying immune markers in TNBC tumors and applying new technology to characterize cancer-fighting immune cells.
What’s Next
As regulatory requirements are completed, surgeons will accrue patients and contribute tissue samples to the biobank. The new consortium will build upon work from the ICSBCS by expanding the pool of patients with TNBC available for comparison and further study.
Read more about Dr. Newman’s work as part of BCRF’s Health Equity Initiative here.
Biography
Lisa Newman, MD, MPH is a surgical oncologist with a practice dedicated to breast cancer management. She oversees the breast program for the Weill Cornell Medicine-New York Presbyterian Hospital Network, serving its Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn sites. She is the Founding Medical Director for the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes, currently headquartered at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Dr. Newman previously served as breast program director for the Henry Ford Health System, covering multiple hospitals throughout Michigan. She was a professor of surgery and Director of the Breast Care Center for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and served as Program Director for the Breast Fellowship from 2002 to 2015. Dr. Newman attended medical school and completed her general surgery residency training at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. She did her fellowship training in surgical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, followed by joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor. She continues to hold an adjunct professorship with MD Anderson.
Dr. Newman’s primary research has focused on race/ethnicity-related variation in breast cancer risk and outcome and the evaluation and management of high-risk patients. She is credited with broadening the applications for neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and surgical techniques such as the skin-sparing mastectomy and lymphatic mapping/sentinel lymph node biopsy. Her extensive research related to disparities in breast cancer risk and outcome has been published in numerous peer-reviewed medical journals.
Dr. Newman oversees an international breast cancer research and training program involving a network of physicians and facilities in Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
