Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy diagnosed and the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in women both in Canada and worldwide. However, breast cancer is not just a one disease, but actually consists of at least four main types. For each of these, the management, treatment and outcome can be quite different. This classification of breast cancer was established based on molecular research that identified the biological changes in cell function that leads to the development of breast cancer, by measuring RNA expression. As a result, RNA profiling methods are now used to identify breast cancer types, significantly improving the diagnosis and management of breast cancer overall. However, these molecular tests can currently guide effective treatment only for two of the four main types, and there are still improvements needed, particularly in the type known as basal-like breast cancer. This is the most aggressive form of the disease, with a propensity to afflict younger women, and still lacks successful treatments beyond partial benefits from cytotoxic chemotherapy. Thus, new treatments are highly needed for young women with this aggressive group of breast cancers. We plan to address this problem using a new technology that can measure the expression of thousands of proteins in the same routine surgical tissues that are used for patient diagnosis. We propose to analyze 300 tumor samples from breast cancer patients, many with the basal-like RNA type, and link the expression of proteins with patient treatment and outcome. We expect that this study will identify basal-like breast cancers that may prove treatable with new targeted therapies. If successful, this study will guide more specific and effective treatment options for early stage breast cancer patients with the most aggressive type of the disease.