Contributions
November 29 2011
The WTFC is proud to announce
a $5000 contribution has been made to:
Dr. Sara Sukumar
At Johns Hopkins
University
October 13 2011
The WTFC is proud to announce
a $5000 contribution has been made to:
Dr. WilliamGillanders and his team at
The Washington University
School of Medicine
My area of research is immunology, and one thing that we are working on is the interplay between the immune system and breast cancer. I’m personally excited about the development of several different breast cancer vaccines. It has been a goal for many years to try to design tumor vaccines and specifically, breast cancer vaccines. I would say that in the last decade we’ve made a huge amount of progress towards that goal. We have a much better understanding of the immune system, how and why vaccines work and when it would be most appropriate to use them.
We have several breast cancer vaccines in the pipeline for clinical trial. It’s very promising that someday we might be able to use breast cancer vaccines as an adjunct to some of the other treatment modalities that are already in use.
The current vaccines are being used in trial for patients who are already diagnosed with breast cancer. In the future, we might be able to use the vaccines to prevent breast cancer. We’re not quite there yet, but certainly, that is one of the long-term goals of developing a vaccine. So, a woman who is identified to be high risk for developing breast cancer might be a potential candidate for the vaccine. That’s probably ten years away, but it’s one of the goals we are working towards.
December 20 2010
The WTFC is proud to announce
a $5000 contribution has been made to:
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
of the North Shore-LIJ health System
Breast and Ovarian Cancer Specimen Bank
Investigators at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research recently began collaborating with North Shore-LIJ Health System oncologists on a potentially life-changing new study: a Breast and Ovarian Cancer Specimen Bank. Aimed at improving survival rates for women with either type of cancer, the study is the first of its kind and is being led by Dr. Annette Lee at The Feinstein Institute, Dr. John Lovecchio and Dr. Andrew Menzin at North Shore University Hospital, and Dr. Iuliana Shapira and Dr. Richard Gralla at the Monter Cancer Center.
For sufferers of breast and ovarian cancer, early detection is the key to survival. In fact, when diagnosed while still localized, the five-year survival rate is 98.3 percent for a breast cancer patient and over 90 percent for an ovarian cancer patient. Unfortunately, current methods of early detection are not effective until a tumor cell mass has formed, which may be years after the initial onset of the disease. Through the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Specimen Bank, researchers are collecting blood and tissue samples from women who have or are suspected to have either type of cancer. These samples will then be used as a resource to discover and validate new biomarkers for early detection, prediction of disease course and outcome, treatment response and risk of relapse.
November 2 2010
The WTFC is proud to announce
a $5000 contribution has been made to:
Breast cancer research at Memorial
Sloan-kettering Cancer Center!!!!
The WTFC is proud to announce
a contribution has been made to:
City of Hope
Dr. Melanie Palomares's Research Fund
Scientists are developing a blood test to detect breast cancer early, when it can be most successfully treated. This test could be useful for the initial diagnosis of breast cancer and for the early detection of breast cancer recurrence. Over the next five years, researchers led by Melanie Palomares, M.D., will gather blood cell specimens from women with invasive breast cancer, as well as women with ductal carcinoma in situ and benign breast disease. Dr. Palomares will study each blood cell sample in search of messages only expressed by breast cancer cells.
The WTFC is proud to announce
a contribution has been made to:
Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Ben Ho Park's Research Fund
Our laboratory is using genetic based approaches so that
we can find
better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat breast cancers. We do this using sophisticated genetic models that recapitulate genes known to cause breast cancer as well as genes that
are responsible for drug resistance. For example, we recently discovered that the PIK3CA
gene is the most frequently mutated gene in human breast cancers,
and we are currently developing targeted therapies for breast cancers that contain this mutantgene. We also study other aspects of breast cancer therapy including estrogenreceptor signaling and genes that confer resistance to hormonal therapies. A new area of active research in our lab is to find genetic factors that may or may not place women at higher risk. Using patient samples from families with ahistory of breast cancer but without BRCA1or BRCA2 mutations,wehave begun to analyze what other genes contributeto breast cancers within these families. In addition, in families witha known BRCA1
or BRCA2 mutation, we are also studying other genes besides BRCA1 and BRCA2 that areinvolved with cases of breast and ovarian cancers that occur in these families. The work supported by The WTFC will further our understanding about inherited markers of risk and allow us to identify new molecular targets infamilial and sporadic forms of breast cancer.
The WTFC is proud to announce it's first contribution to:
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. Jacqueline Bromberg Research Fund
My research has led to a number of important discoveries related to the nature and treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Metastatic breast cancer is a complex process which couples the immune system to creating hospitable environments in the lung, bone and liver for breast cancer cells to thrive. Of recent interest is the discovery that within a primary breast tumor, only a tiny subset of cancer cells (cancer stem cells) have the capacity to metastasize and grow in different locations (lung, bone and liver).
In order to eradicate metastatic disease we have to understand the mechanisms by which this occurs. We have discovered that a molecule known as interleukin-6 (IL-6) is the critical link between the immune system and cancer progression. In addition, IL-6 is also produced to high levels by breast cancer stem cells which have the capacity to metastasize. Furthermore, we have shown that increasing the levels of IL-6 in a cancer cell can mediate its transformation from a "dormant" cancer to one capable of rapidly proliferating in the lung. Importantly, inhibiting this molecule not only stops the spread of cancer cells but also inhibits their growth.
We are aggressively pursuing our findings experimentally by coupling traditional chemotherapies to these novel IL-6 inhibitors and determining the most effective way of delivering these compounds such that they obviate resistance and ultimately eliminate this disease.
As a consequence of our findings we are launching a clinical trial using inhibitors of IL-6 and are extremely optimistic that this therapy, which not only targets the breast cancer stem cell but also the immune cells which mediate metastatic spread and growth, will effectively eradicate metastatic disease.
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Well, I was lucky, I tested negative for the BRCA genes!.....my story
