We are delighted to welcome Helen Piwnica-Worms, PhD to our upcoming Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Grand Rounds presentation. Please join us in person or via Zoom for this exceptional educational opportunity.

Dr. Piwnica-Worms is the Senator A.M. Aikin, Jr. Distinguished Chair of Experimental Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Presentation Title:

"Tackling triple negative breast cancer"

Presentation Highlights:

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer defined by the absence of estrogen and progesterone receptors and the lack of HER2 amplification or overexpression. Because TNBC is classified by what it lacks rather than the presence of actionable biomarkers, targeted therapies are limited. As a result, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), with or without immunotherapy, remains the standard treatment for patients with early-stage disease. Patient outcomes are closely tied to response to NACT: those with high residual cancer burden (RCB) after therapy face significantly worse recurrence and survival rates. TNBC remains lethal in patients who do not respond to NACT. Our goal is to identify mechanisms driving resistance

and develop strategies to overcome it.

More about Dr. Piwnica-Worms:

The goals of her research program are aimed at understanding the function and regulation of proteins involved in cell cycle and checkpoint control; identifying mutations and epigenetic modifications with functional significance to the development and progression of invasive triple negative breast cancer (TNBC); developing and exploiting models that enable cell cycle regulatory proteins, cancer drivers and therapeutic targets to be functionally studied in vertebrate animals and translating results from basic, omic and preclinical studies into improved clinical interventions for breast cancer patients. Recognizing that a key challenge facing breast cancer researchers today is the lack of good preclinical models for studying human breast cancer, we are working with primary human breast tumors obtained directly from patients with TNBC. These tumors are being propagated in the humanized mammary fat pads of immune compromised mice for our discovery, omic and preclinical studies. Many of these human tumors metastasize out of the mammary gland to lung, bone, liver and brain facilitating our studies aimed at identifying drivers of breast cancer metastasis. In addition, we are identifying, characterizing and targeting tumor cells in treatment naïve TNBC that are resistant to front line chemotherapy.

Tuesday, April 14 from 12:00 - 1:00 pm

Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Ground Floor Conference Room 0.12.101

Zoom:

https://unmc.zoom.us/j/92412101426?pwd=cxadx8xW8w5496EXpxVxWikJAazuLa.1

Meeting ID: 924 1210 1426
Passcode: 666054