How Breast Cancer Treatment Is Becoming More Personalized

By: Tara Roberts | October 01, 2026 | 7 min. read |

Elisa Krill Jackson, M.D., a breast oncologist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains how tumor genomics, antibody-drug conjugates and clinical research are helping physicians personalize breast cancer treatment.

Key Takeaways

Dr. Elisa Krill Jackson has been working with breast cancer patient for 30 years.
Tumor genomics help Dr. Krill Jackson personalize treatment for patients with early-stage breast cancer.
Antibody-drug conjugates deliver chemotherapy more directly to breast cancer cells.
The Free-HER clinical trial studies closely monitored treatment discontinuation in a specific group of patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

The progress in breast cancer treatment has been astronomical over the 30 years that Elisa Krill Jackson, M.D., has been in medicine.

“With more targeted treatments and immunotherapies and chemotherapies, we’re prolonging patients’ lives and the quality of their lives,” said Dr. Krill Jackson, a breast oncologist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of UHealth—University of Miami Health System.

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Krill Jackson shared about her work in the following interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Please tell us about your role at Sylvester.

I’ve been practicing in the Miami Beach community for 30 years. Seven years ago, Sylvester recruited me to do breast oncology, and I see 100% breast cancer patients.

I also have a clinical trial at Sylvester called Free-HER, which looks at patients with metastatic HER-2 positive breast cancer.

Metastatic breast cancer has been thought of as incurable, but because of our great advances in medication, there’s a subgroup of patients with metastatic HER-2 positive breast cancer who have never relapsed. I’ve always had an interest in that, and moving to Sylvester allowed me to develop my own clinical trial to study these patients who have been on maintenance therapy for years.

My trial looked at taking them off medication and monitoring them very closely with scans and what we call circulating tumor DNA, which is like little snippets of cancer DNA that escape from tumors and go into the peripheral blood. That’s something we’ve only been able to detect in the past few years, and it’s revolutionized our treatment.

For this trial, it allowed us to detect the cancer recurrence in these women at the earliest sign and get them back on the treatment. It’s been a very successful strategy. Most of my patients who have been on treatment for many years have not relapsed when we take them off.

What drew you to a career in oncology?

I enjoy taking care of patients with cancer. It’s a privilege to be able to usher them through the most difficult times of their lives, and I think that allows a strong bond to form between patient and physician. I also think the science is fascinating. We’re making such strides in changing cancer treatments.

We have at least three new antibody drug conjugates that we are using for the three main groups of breast cancer. They’ve revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced breast cancer.
Dr. Elisa Krill Jackson

What are some important advances in breast cancer treatment?

We can look at the genomics of a tumor, which refers to the active genes within it. For patients with early-stage disease, that can often let us personalize their treatment. We can reserve our most toxic treatments for the people who will really benefit from them and give less to the people who won’t.

I think the most interesting treatments that have come out are what we call antibody drug conjugates, which I like to explain as like a Trojan horse. It’s an antibody that’s directed to a protein on a breast cancer cell and the antibody has some chemo molecules hiding inside of it. It “knocks” on the door of the cell and the cell takes it inside. Those chemo molecules come off, let loose inside the cell and kill it from the inside. It’s a way of directing chemotherapy to the cells that you want to direct it to and not indiscriminately to the whole body.

We have at least three new antibody drug conjugates that we are using for the three main groups of breast cancer. These drugs have been shown to be more effective than standard chemotherapy. They’ve revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced breast cancer and we’re also using some of them in early breast cancer to increase our cure rates. It’s been exciting to see progress moving so quickly.

How are you working to reach patient populations in South Florida?

Sylvester as a whole has a broad reach. I have three different offices, at our main Miami campus, in North Miami at SoLé Mia and in Deerfield. A fun part of my job is seeing and meeting patients from every walk of life. At any office I can see any patient, but Sylvester has moved into these different areas in the community so we can get excellent medical care to people who may not have sought out Sylvester downtown.

What do you enjoy outside of work?

I’m a big reader. I was an English major at Yale, but then I decided to go into medicine. I’m part of a book club that’s been going on for almost 30 years with the same group of women. I have two adult children and, between them, hiking, golf and my books, it’s a very full life.