Turning scientific serendipity into discoveries in breast cancer research and treatment: a tale of PhD students and a 50-year roaming tamoxifen team.

Tamoxifen and the failed breast cancer drug raloxifene became the first selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs): a new drug group, discovered at the University of Wisconsin, Comprehensive Cancer Center. Serendipity can play a fundamental role in discovery, but there must be a rigorous preparation for the investigator to appreciate the possibility of a pending discovery. This article follows the unanticipated discoveries when PhD students "get the wrong answer." The secret of success of my six Tamoxifen Teams was their technical excellence to create models, to decipher mechanisms, that drove the development of new medicines. Discoveries are listed that either changed women's health or allowed an understanding of originally opaque mechanisms of action of potential therapies. These advances in women's health were supported entirely by government-sponsored peer-reviewed funding and major philanthropy from the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation, the Avon Foundation, and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The resulting lives saved or extended, families aided in a time of crisis and the injection of billions of dollars into national economies by drug development, is proof of the value of Federal or philanthropic investment into unencumbered research aimed at saving millions of lives.