Grant: Project Grant

Young women who develop breast cancer often have inherited a change to a gene called BRCA1. We are studying how these inherited changes affect the growth of mammary cells. We have identified that harmful or pathogenic changes in BRCA1, those that associate with breast cancer, cause a mammary cell to proliferate abnormally. Now, we will determine whether the control of cell division is a new and important feature of BRCA1. We have also found that pathways inside the cell and pathways outside the cell work together to control growth and we will now study these pathways to determine how changes to the BRCA1 gene cause defective cell growth. We expect the findings generated by the proposed research will provide new insights into how the mutation of BRCA1 leads to the loss of control over mammary cell growth.