The Dunedin 27-year-old graduated in absentia on December 18 last year, and was the fourth generation of his family to graduate from the University of Otago.
Dr McMillan has been awarded the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand 2022 Ronald Kay Science Fellowship, which will allow him to join global efforts to end women dying of breast cancer.
He said he would use the grant to carry out a post-doctoral position at the prestigious Cancer Research United Kingdom Cambridge Institute at Cambridge University.
Using the latest genomic and proteomic (the study of proteins) techniques, he planned to study the FOXA1 gene to identify what caused breast cancer to spread.
Advanced breast cancer (ABC), also known as metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer, is when a tumour spreads beyond the breast to vital organs in the body.
There is no cure for ABC at present.
FOXA1 has previously been associated with treatment resistance (when drugs stop working) and metastatic development.
Dr McMillan said his research was aimed at evaluating how the proteins recruited by FOXA1 differ between metastatic and primary tumours, to understand how FOXA1 promotes the spread of breast cancer.
"The aim is to develop targeted treatments to prevent this from happening.
"I’m really interested in understanding the fundamental changes that drive metastases, so that we can develop life-changing therapies for metastatic growth.
"Cambridge is at the forefront of this research, and its strong connection between lab and clinic is exciting — it means I’ll hopefully be able to make a big difference quite quickly."
Dr McMillan was one of two New Zealand breast cancer researchers to receive a $120,000 fellowship.
Dr Lauren Brown was awarded the foundation’s 2022 Belinda Scott Clinical Fellowship.
Dr Brown, formerly of Auckland, is a medical oncologist based at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and is seeking to understand how breast cancer differs in younger (premenopausal) women.
Foundation chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner said breast cancer was the leading cause of death for New Zealand women under 65 and more research was desperately needed to find out how it spread and why it was deadlier for younger women.
"We were impressed by the passion both Hamish and Lauren showed for making a real-world impact on women through cutting-edge science.
"Their work will contribute to the growing body of knowledge on breast cancer and could help to revolutionise treatment."
