Grant: Project Grant

Breast cancer is the most common and one of the deadliest cancers affecting women in North America. One group of breast cancers is called the triple-negative breast cancer and comprises highly aggressive tumors. Patients with triple-negative breast cancer exhibit poor outcomes due to absence of long-term response to chemotherapy, which leads to tumor relapse and metastasis. Identification of additional therapies to efficiently treat this group of breast cancers is therefore a priority. One of the main issues with aggressive tumors like the triple-negative breast cancers, is that the cancer cells can change their identity to be able to favor the growth of the tumor and to better survive despite being treated with chemotherapy. The goal of this project is to identify the mechanisms that collaborate together to control how triple negative breast cancer cells change their identify and how these changes in identify help cancer cells to better use different sources of nutrients and resources to generate energy and proliferate. We will also investigate strategies to target these mechanisms in triple-negative breast cancer cells with the goal of preventing tumor growth and progression. The results generated from this project could allow the identification of new biological mechanisms that contribute to the adaptations and progression of tumors. Investigating whether and how these mechanisms can be co-targeted to develop improved pharmacological approaches for the treatment of poor prognosis triple-negative breast cancers.