Nicole Clifford on Founding MBCure and Transforming Metastatic Breast Cancer Research

Emma Ter-Azaryan, Editorial Lead of OncoDaily TV, interviewed Nicole Clifford, Co-Founder of MBCure, about the organization’s mission, leadership journey, and the future of metastatic breast cancer research.

Dr. Nicole Beck Clifford is a Doctor of Dental Medicine (D.M.D.) and a Clinical Fellow in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. In March 2025, she co-founded MBCure, a non-profit organization created from a family-driven commitment to address the significant funding gap in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) research and patient support. Through MBCure, Dr. Clifford is dedicated to advancing research, raising awareness, and improving access to care for those affected by MBC.

Inside the Mission of MBCure

Emma Ter-Azaryan: As a distinguished leader in the field, how would you describe your leadership style, and how has it evolved throughout your career?

Nicole Clifford: My leadership style is collaborative and emphasizes teamwork. Early in my career, I struggled with delegation and knowing how to organize teams in an efficient and effective way. Over time, I’ve learned that the most meaningful progress happens when you empower others, build strong teams with diverse skillsets, and create a shared vision that everyone feels passionate about. MBCure has only been possible because of the effort and dedication of everyone on our team, and we all work in tandem. The most rewarding part of our journey has been watching new initiatives come to life through the power of diverse perspectives and thought. When people with different experiences, skillsets, and ideas collaborate, they challenge each other’s thinking and refine the vision. The result is a stronger, more innovative outcome—far beyond what any single individual could achieve alone.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What have been some of the most significant challenges you’ve encountered while founding MBCure, and how did you navigate through them?

Nicole Clifford: One of our greatest challenges has been continuing to scale our supporter base in a sustainable manner. At the onset, the majority of our supporters were family and close friends, but we know that in order to broaden our impact, we must expand our reach. Especially with so many organizations focused on breast cancer, it can be challenging to show why and how MBCure is different. We recently launched a new model with our MBCure Research Consortium that innovates how nonprofit funding can drive research. Launching this consortium required trust and transparency among our team and our broader community. We navigated this by building strong relationships with leading cancer centers, demonstrating our commitment to impact, and remaining persistent in advocating for a bold, collaborative vision that metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients urgently need.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What inspired the creation of MBCure, and what drove you to take the initiative in founding this organization?

Nicole Clifford: Our journey and the founding of this organization has been inspired by two family members who we lost to metastatic breast cancer (MBC). In our view, MBC remains the most critical unmet need in breast cancer research. MBCure was born out of a need and want to prioritize urgency, results, and hope. We recognize a gap in how funding is being allocated with researchers and institutions commonly working in silos, rather than working together. This creates a fragmented rather than focused approach to research. We were inspired by the belief that a united, high-impact approach could accelerate the development of high-risk, high-reward research that focuses on curative discoveries and therapies. This determination drove us to create an organization that would not just raise funds, but strategically deploy them to catalyze breakthrough research.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: The MBCure Research Consortium brings together top cancer centers globally. How do you believe this collaborative approach will accelerate advancements in metastatic breast cancer research?

Nicole Clifford: By uniting three of the world’s leading cancer centers under a single, mission-focused consortium in the region where MBCure established its roots and has a strong community and supporter base, we remove silos and foster unprecedented knowledge sharing. This model allows researchers to align efforts, share data in real time, and pursue high-risk, high-reward projects that individual institutions might not undertake alone. The collaborative approach reduces redundancy, accelerates discovery, and ultimately brings patients closer to curative treatments faster than any single institution could on its own.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What are the key strategic objectives you envision for MBCure in the coming years?

Nicole Clifford: What lasting impact do you aspire to achieve through the consortium? Our primary objectives are to accelerate curative-intent research, create a sustainable funding model, and foster collaboration among three institutions that have never been brought together in this way before. We aim to continuously invest in bold projects while tracking impact with transparency by sharing annual impact reports with our community.

Through these reports and events that we hold, we aim to keep our community updated on the progress of the MBCure Research Consortium. Aside from the funding of research, we hope that the establishment of the MBCure Research Consortium can serve as a proven model showing how nonprofits in other regions can strategically and collaboratively bring other institutions together in a similar manner to driver more efficient and effective results for patients.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: With MBCure rapidly expanding, what have been some of the most challenging aspects of scaling a nonprofit organization, and how do you ensure that growth aligns with the core mission?

Nicole Clifford: Scaling requires balancing growth with mission integrity. The most challenging aspect has been managing increased visibility and demand without diluting our focus on strategic, high-impact research in addition to the other areas of our mission including MBC awareness, education, and access efforts. We ensure alignment by continuously evaluating opportunities through the lens of our mission and what the organization has the bandwidth for at the current moment.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What innovative partnerships or collaborations do you foresee being critical in advancing MBC research and accelerating the development of curative therapies?

Nicole Clifford: There is tremendous potential in cross-sector collaborations that unite academic research, biotech, and pharmaceutical industries. Partnerships that leverage data-sharing, clinical trial acceleration, and novel funding models will be critical. Additionally, collaborations with other nonprofits are critical, as this allows us to scale in a sustainable manner and work smarter together. For example, MBCure has recently developed relationships with FORCE and Cancer Culture. More details about our work together can be found on our website.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: How do you see the role of emerging technologies, like AI or precision medicine, impacting the future of metastatic breast cancer treatment and research?

Nicole Clifford: Emerging technologies are transforming how we understand and treat cancer. Precision medicine allows us to tailor therapies to individual patients and tumor biology, while AI has the potential to uncover insights from vast datasets that were previously impossible to analyze. Together, these technologies can identify new therapeutic targets, improve clinical trial design, and speed up the development of personalized treatments for metastatic breast cancer.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What do you see as the greatest opportunity for innovation in the field of metastatic breast cancer research today, and how is MBCure positioned to take advantage of that?

Nicole Clifford: One of the greatest opportunities lies in fostering integrated, translational research that moves discoveries from the lab to the clinic faster. MBCure is uniquely positioned to drive this innovation because of our consortium model, which promotes collaboration across leading institutions, enables rapid resource allocation to promising projects, and reduces the inefficiencies of siloed research.

Emma Ter-Azaryan: What steps are you taking to ensure that the organization remains adaptable and responsive to the evolving needs of metastatic breast cancer research?

Nicole Clifford: We’ve built adaptability into the DNA of MBCure by continuously reviewing our strategy, engaging directly with leading physicians and scientists, and incorporating feedback frompatients and stakeholders. Our consortium model allows us to pivot resources quickly toward emerging opportunities, and our commitment to developing and monitoring impact metrics with our MBCure Liaisons ensures that our decisions are data-driven and that our process can be revised as needed based on progress and outcomes. This agility will allow MBCure to stay at the forefront of metastatic breast cancer research. Furthermore, our team is made up of extraordinary women with diverse backgrounds and expertise, united by deep trust and mutual respect—proving that when women champion and uplift one another, the impact is truly unstoppable.

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