Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Breast cancer is predicted to affect 1 in 9 women in Canada. One sub-type of breast cancer, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by the lack of HER2, progesterone, and estrogen receptors. Though TNBC accounts for only 10-20% of breast cancer cases, it is responsible for a large proportion of deaths due to cancer, as this cancer is very aggressive and likely to spread to other parts of the body. Standard treatments for breast cancer such as hormone therapy or targeted drugs cannot be used to treat TNBC due to the lack of receptors. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new therapies that specifically target TNBC to increase survival of women with this disease. Gene silencing is a promising approach to treat TNBC: in gene silencing, genes driving the development of cancer cells can be "turned off" stop their growth. Current delivery methods of silencing components to cancer cells involve using small synthetic particles or mammalian viruses. These modes of delivery have technological challenges and there is risk of toxicity. To overcome these hurdles, my research will utilize plant-virus based materials to serve as the scaffolds to deliver gene silencing therapeutics. Plant-virus based materials are non-hazardous, non-infectious in humans and therefore safer to use for therapeutic delivery. These natural particles can be used to carry and target gene silencing cargo directly to cancer cells. This new delivery approach will provide a new, improved, and safe way to treat breast cancer.