Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers that occurs in women. Recent work suggests that recurring breast cancer might be due to a rare population of cells that is able to drive tumor formation. Stem cells within the normal breast that produce all of the different types of normal mammary cells throughout life are thought to be the forerunners of the cells that cause breast cancer and are later responsible for relapse. It is therefore important to understand how normal breast stem cells are regulated as these should provide key clues as to how breast cancer grows abnormally. Unfortunately there is very little information about normal breast stem cells. Recently, a complete functional mouse breast was grown using a single stem cell that was isolated from an adult female mouse. These cells might be responsible for driving the growth of the normal breast during development and later during puberty and pregnancy. Using the mouse as a model, I will investigate what happens to stem cells as the mouse goes through these stages of remodeling and development. By understanding how normal breast stem cells are regulated during development, we can begin to direct our efforts to identify specific populations that are more prone to becoming cancerous and develop more effective therapies.