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• Breast cancer remains a major cause of cancer death, with more than 11,500 deaths per year in the UK, despite advances in detection and treatment.​

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• Improved diagnostic and prognostic methods are needed, not only to reduce breast cancer mortality, but also to reduce the large number of unnecessary interventions resulting from overdiagnosis and the very poor positive predictive value of screening.

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• Characteristics of pathological calcifications in breast cancer are a marker of particular interest, since calcification composition is indicative of chemical changes within the tissue during tumour formation, and may indicate propensity to spread through metastasis.

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• This project combines and builds on multiple strands of previous research, and will generate a new understanding of the materials physicochemistry of tumour tissues.  As a result, we expect this will identify important new biomarkers and novel diagnostic methods.