How Breast Cancer Arises Breakthrough
Via Breast Cancer Now
The Story
Breast cancer researchers reported several advances in 2023 in understanding how the disease starts, spreads, and resists treatment, pointing toward more targeted therapies.
A team led by Dr Ahmet Ucar at the University of Manchester found that the protein RAC1B allows cancer stem cells to drive tumors and evade treatment, and in mice, stem cells lacking RAC1B could not form visible tumors even after 100 days and were more vulnerable to chemotherapy.
At the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre, Dr Frances Turrell and Professor Clare Isacke identified a protein called PDGF C that helps determine whether dormant cancer cells reawaken in the lungs, and they are testing whether the existing drug imatinib could block that trigger.
Professor Anita Grigoriadis built an artificial intelligence model that analyzed more than 5,000 lymph nodes from 345 patients with triple negative breast cancer and successfully predicted where secondary tumors would develop.
Dr Rachael Natrajan screened 80 drugs against tumors carrying SF3B1 gene changes and found that PARP inhibitors effectively killed the affected cancer cells in the laboratory.
A separate analysis by Dr Michael Jones of 540,000 women across 19 studies showed that the most physically active women were about 10 percent less likely to develop breast cancer before menopause, offering a fuller molecular and preventive picture than existed before.
A team led by Dr Ahmet Ucar at the University of Manchester found that the protein RAC1B allows cancer stem cells to drive tumors and evade treatment, and in mice, stem cells lacking RAC1B could not form visible tumors even after 100 days and were more vulnerable to chemotherapy.
At the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre, Dr Frances Turrell and Professor Clare Isacke identified a protein called PDGF C that helps determine whether dormant cancer cells reawaken in the lungs, and they are testing whether the existing drug imatinib could block that trigger.
Professor Anita Grigoriadis built an artificial intelligence model that analyzed more than 5,000 lymph nodes from 345 patients with triple negative breast cancer and successfully predicted where secondary tumors would develop.
Dr Rachael Natrajan screened 80 drugs against tumors carrying SF3B1 gene changes and found that PARP inhibitors effectively killed the affected cancer cells in the laboratory.
A separate analysis by Dr Michael Jones of 540,000 women across 19 studies showed that the most physically active women were about 10 percent less likely to develop breast cancer before menopause, offering a fuller molecular and preventive picture than existed before.
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