A team from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) has scored a major grant — and it could help improve treatment for breast cancer patients.
The group received a $2.05 million award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), with the funds going to an advanced genetics project that could contribute to targeted therapies and personalized treatment for breast cancer.
The project’s lead investigator is Liza Makowski, Ph.D., a professor of hematology and oncology in the UTHSC College of Medicine.
Typically, developing new therapies for breast cancer depends on a deep understanding of individual genetics. Pre-clinical research, however, is often hampered by the lack of genetic diversity in most animal models — which doesn’t represent the wider genetic variation found in humans.
So, Makowski’s team has created a pre-clinical model using the BXD family of mice, one of the largest genetic reference populations. These BXD mice have been crossed with a model that develops triple-negative breast cancer, creating a hybrid with reliable, and reproducible genetic variation.
Makowski and co. will analyze the variation, to determine which regions of DNA contribute to certain breast cancer characteristics. Already, preliminary data shows that genetic modifiers impact disease. Her team will also test therapies to identify underlying genetics, which could help identify genetic strains that respond well to therapy.
“This model allows researchers to test the underlying genetics on the impacts of cancer timing, severity, and response to different therapies to identify candidate genes using advanced systems genetics,” Makowski said.
UTHSC is continuously churning out research, and this isn’t the first time a project at the institution has received funding from the National Cancer Institute. For example, in February, a team from the school received a $3.2 million grant from the NCI to test health technology in managing obesity in disadvantaged groups.
And previously, the lab of faculty member Wei Li, Ph.D., lab received a $2.5 million grant from the NCI for a compound called SEAK-114, which is expected to act as a targeted leukemia therapy.
