Børresen-Dale has received several prizes and awards, some of the most prestigious being the Swiss Bridge Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in 2004, the Möbius prize for outstanding Research from the Research Council of Norway in 2008, The Mildred Scheel Lecturership in 2015, the Fritjof Nansen medal and award for Outstanding Research from the Academy of Science and Letters, Norway in 2015, the AACR Distinguished Lectureship in Breast Cancer Research in 2015 and the AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship and award in 2017. She was appointed to Commander of the Royal Norwegian St. Olavs Order by the King of Norway in 2017. Børresen-Dale has been Member of the Board of Directors of both AACR and ECCO, is past president of EACR, and is Elected Member of The Royal Academy of Science, Norway, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the European Academy of Cancer Sciences.

Børresen-Dale's research has been focusing on Exploring the Systems Biology of Breast Cancer using high dimensional data in integrated approaches aiming at identification of genotypes and gene expression profiles contributing to elevated cancer risk, radiation sensitivity, tumor aggressiveness and therapy resistance. The goal has been to follow the linear time course of predisposition, initiation, early stages and advanced disease and to dissect the molecular mechanisms triggered at each stage and to follow the multidimensional interactions at various levels in a systems biology approach to be able to better do risk estimation, prognostication and prediction.