Canadian breast cancer researchers and international colleagues met recently to present and discuss their latest data. The conference, which was sponsored by the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative, was held in Quebec City, 3-5 May 2001. The Research Initiative was founded in 1993 and is a unique partnership of groups from the public, private and non-profit sectors committed to funding a broad spectrum of breast cancer research. From this meeting, and others like it, it is becoming increasingly clear that basic research findings are rapidly being translated into tumor subtype and stage-specific therapeutic strategies that have the potential to impact significantly on disease outcome.