News: breast cancer
Well done Ebtihal Mustafa - PhD awarded!
Congratulations to Ebtihal Mustafa for great work in completing her doctoral thesis on "Development of a novel therapeutic strategy for estrogen receptor negative breast cancer". And in further good news, Ebi will start a postdoctoral position in October with Assoc Prof Nicholas Clemons at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne whose research interests are in fundamental cancer biology and pre-clinical development of innovative therapeutic strategies and translational research, with a focus on upper gastrointestinal cancers. Best of luck Ebi!
Congratulations! Leila Hosseinzadeh – Dean's commendation for doctoral research excellence
Another DRMCRL student has been awarded a Higher Degree by Research. Leila Hosseinzadeh’s PhD thesis entitled: “Role of the GATA3 transcription factor in mediating androgen receptor signalling in breast cancer” has academically qualified her for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and a Deans Commendation for Research Excellence. Leila is on a hat trick - with preparation of a manuscript from her thesis work, and an offer of a post-doctoral position in Canada with Dr Mathieu Lupien. Great job Leila!
Excellent cartoon video explaining the DRMCRL breast cancer advance story
Watch this short video explaining the AR breast cancer story published recently in Nature Medicine (Hickey et al, Vol 27, 310-320; http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-01168-7).
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Associate Professor Theresa Hickey publishes paper in Nature Medicine on a suppression role for AR in breast cancer
Androgen receptor (AR)-directed therapies are controversial in (ER)-α-positive breast cancer treatment. Associate Professor Hickey et al have published a paper entitled “The androgen receptor is a tumor suppressor in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer” that demonstrates AR activation, not suppression, exerts potent anti-tumor activity in multiple disease contexts, including resistance to standard-of-care ER and CDK4/6 inhibitors. Notably, AR agonists combined with standard-of-care agents enhanced therapeutic responses. These findings provide unambiguous evidence that AR has a tumor suppressor role in ER-positive breast cancer and support AR agonism as the optimal AR-directed treatment strategy, revealing a rational therapeutic opportunity.
PRESS RELEASE! New discovery in breast cancer treatment by researchers at the University of Adelaide and the Garvan Institute for Medical Research
Associate Professor Theresa Hickey, Professor Wayne Tilley (University of Adelaide) and Associate Professor Elgene Lim (Garvan Institute) have found new evidence about the positive role of androgens in breast cancer treatment with immediate implications for women with estrogen receptor-driven metastatic disease. Read the Press Release and watch a video on how androgen receptor activation can suppress tumour activity.
Dr Amy Dwyer publishes paper in the British Journal of Cancer on a role for IGF/insulin in breast cancer
Dr Amy Dwyer was first author on a paper recently published in BJC entitled "Insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) mediates progesterone receptor–driven stemness and endocrine resistance in oestrogen receptor+ breast cancer". Amy’s work for this paper was undertaken during her postdoctoral appointment at The Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA. Well done Amy!
DRMCRL students Danielle Fang and Ebithal Mustafa awarded prizes
PhD student Danielle Fang was awarded an Innovation and Commercial Partners Prize at the 2020 Virtual Florey Postgraduate Research Conference in October, 2020. Her poster was entitled "USP2: A key driver in lethal prostate cancer?" In November 2020, PhD student Ebithal Mustafa was awarded the Australian Women in Endocrinology Prize at the 63rd ESA Annual Scientific meeting (virtual). Her poster entitled "TFAP-2β interacts with AR to determine the phenotype and growth of molecular apocrine breast cancer" was the highest ranked science poster in the e-poster award finalist group. Congratulations to Danielle and Ebi!
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Symposium: Patient-derived in vitro models - Advances and challenges
Dr Jean Winter gave a presentation on "Advances and challenges of high-throughput 3D imaging using patient derived samples" as related to her breast cancer research, at the symposium organised by the South Australian Cancer Research Institute / University of South Australia. This focused symposium attracted more than 110 participants from 17 universities and research institutes across the country. Models and enabling technologies featured in the program were prostate cancer explants, and organoids derived from liver, nasal cells, ovary, breast and bowel cancer.
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Movember- National Breast Cancer Foundation Collaborative Linkage Program engagement meeting held in Sydney
Our Collaborative Linkage grant team members met in Sydney on 10 March 2020 to showcase and discuss the progress on our research program in "Transforming endocrine therapy for breast and prostate cancer". Representatives from each of the project’s node at the University of Adelaide, Monash University and the Garvan Institute attended in person or via teleconference, as did our funding sponsors, Movember and NBCF, and some of our consumer advocates.
NHMRC 2020 Ideas Grant success for DRMCRL
The DRMCRL is excited to announce we have been awarded an NHMRC Ideas Grant for funding commencing in 2020. Professor Wayne Tilley will be the PI for the project entitled “A combinatorial drug strategy to target lethal forms of breast cancer” which will address a critical unmet need by combining new treatment strategies in the most lethal forms of breast cancer.
