title: The Breast International Group. a new spirit of collaboration in breast cancer research for the new millennium.
abstract: The Breast International Group (B.I.G.-aisbl), an official non-profit organisation since 1999, is an association whose members are well established clinical breast cancer research groups located around the world. Inspired by the American 'Intergroup' model, B.I.G. functions as a 'consortium of consortia': it is a partnership among independent co-operative groups, each with its own extensive network of affiliated centres, hospitals, laboratories and investigators. Through B.I.G., groups draw on combined resources to reduce the wasteful duplication of efforts and to achieve results in breast cancer research impossible for any individual group in a comparable period of time. International collaboration through a mechanism like B.I.G. will become increasingly frequent in the future, especially as we move towards exploring therapies targeted at subgroups of patients with specific tumour molecular profiles.
authors.affiliation: Chemotherapy Unit, Institut Jules Bordet, Rue Héger-Bordet 1, 1000, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piccart
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Goldhirsch
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Straehle
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms; D004345:Drug Industry; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D009935:Organizational Affiliation; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D009939:Organizations, Nonprofit; D012106:Research; D012955:Societies, Medical