Those advancements, all of which are being presented or discussed at the four-day conference, include:

   Research suggesting that certain dietary supplements -- some taken in childhood -- could help prevent breast cancer later in life. It also suggests prevention might need to begin much earlier.

   Discovery of techniques that could tell women within minutes and without surgery whether their tumor is benign or malignant and whether their cancer has spread.

   Research that targets breast cancer at its genetic level and helps create individualized treatments.

   Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women. Of the estimated 190,000 U.S. women diagnosed with the disease each year, about 40,000 will die.

   The conference, called "Era of Hope," marks the 10th anniversary of the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program, the second-largest backer of breast-cancer research after the National Cancer Institute. This year, Congress approved $150 million for the program.

   Initially, the National Breast Cancer Coalition lobbied politicians for more federal funding for breast-cancer research.

   U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who lost two sisters to breast cancer, tried several times to introduce an amendment that would transfer money from the Department of Defense's budget for that purpose. As a compromise, the Defense Department, which does other medical research, agreed to launch studies on breast cancer.

PROGRAM FOR PREVENTION

   Much of the grant program focuses on prevention.
   

   "I'm more enthusiastic about prevention than about treatment at this point," said Barker, an immunologist and microbiologist who expects the most significant breast-cancer advancements to come within the next eight to 10 years.

   At the conference in Orlando, scientists today will share new preventive research about two dietary supplements -- one from soy plants and the other from certain animals -- that could help reduce the risk of breast cancer.

   In one study by the University of Alabama in Birmingham, rats fed a diet containing a soy compound called genistein before exposure to a potent cancer-causing drug developed at least 50 percent fewer breast-cancer tumors.

   The study also showed that the protective effects work only during pre-puberty and early adulthood -- a sign that prevention needs to occur early in life. Someday, teens of mothers with breast cancer may be encouraged to take genistein as a dietary supplement.

   FATTY ACID JOINS FIGHT

   Another study showed that conjugated linoleic acid, a minor fatty acid found in some meat and dairy products, stops a key step that causes cancer in mice, said Dr. Margot Ip of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.

   Ip said additional research is needed before scientists could recommend people taking this supplement.

   Scientists also are reviewing technology developed by Australian researchers that could quickly let women know whether they have cancer and whether it has spread. Clinical testing is set to begin in the United States within a year.

   The technique, called magnetic-resonance spectroscopy, analyzes the chemicals in a small cluster of cells taken through a small, hollow needle. The test can determine whether the sample is malignant, and if it is, whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.

   Currently, scientists look at the cells under a microscope -- a much more subjective process.

   The new procedure uses electromagnetic waves to create clearer, three-dimensional images and break them down chemically.

   TEST CAN REDUCE SURGERIES

   "This technology could eliminate a lot of unnecessary surgery in women with breast abnormalities by providing both a diagnosis and a prognosis before surgery," said Dr. Cynthia Lean, scientific director of the Institute for Magnetic Resonance Research in Sydney, Australia.

   Women often need a surgical biopsy to determine whether a breast abnormality is benign or malignant. It may take several days to get biopsy results, but in most cases, the abnormality is benign.

   "But the woman has had to undergo surgery as well as days of uncertainty," Lean said.

   In other research being discussed this week, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington have produced a compound called ribozyme that reduces the growth of breast cancer in mice by decreasing the release of a certain protein. Increasingly, anticancer treatments target specific genes and the proteins they release.

   A study at Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital in Houston showed how a specific genetic profile might identify patients most likely to respond to a specific breast-cancer drug.

   Scientists accurately predicted in 83 percent of patients how they would respond to the drug Taxotere.

   A larger study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health is under way to validate the results of this pilot study.

   Frances Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, said such individualized treatment is another big part of the Department of Defense program's research.

   "We'll hopefully be able to identify which drug will help which women, versus giving all women one drug -- and knowing it will only help half of them," she said.