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Under the direction of George Iida, Ph.D., the cell biology research group at Windber Research Institute is focusing on the characterization of molecular mechanisms of breast cancer progression. Our goals are to 1) identify key molecules that facilitate cancer progression and 2) provide useful information for developing novel strategies for diagnosis/risk assessment as well as better treatments of breast cancer patients.
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In order to approach the first goal, we are generating artificial breast tissue architecture using collagen and fibroblasts as matrices. So far, many of the studies on cancer biology have been performed using conventional two dimensional (2D) cultures on plastic. Considering the nature of tissues where cancer cells grow and invade, we need to develop three dimensional (3D) culture systems that mimic human breast tissues. The 3D artificial breast tissue systems enable us to investigate homo- and heterotypic cell to cell interactions and cell to extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions as mimicking the situation where cancer cells grow and invade in vivo. Clinical studies demonstrate that patients diagnosed with “triple negative” breast cancer (Her2/neu-, ER-, PR-) show poor prognosis outcomes. We are currently evaluating cell adhesion receptors (i.e. integrins and proteoglycans) expressed on triple-negative breast cancer cells for promoting growth and invasion in 3D artificial breast tissue systems. Thus, we will able to provide novel signaling pathways and/or molecules that could be biomarkers as well as targets for breast cancer therapy.
In order to approach the second goal, we are constantly communicating with other research groups including tissue banking, proteomics, genomics, and bioinformatics on daily basis. Thus, we could integrate finding from these translational researches to cell biology for charactering novel proteins and genes in promoting cancer growth and invasion. We strongly believe that the establishment of close collaboration between translational researches and cell biology at Windber Research Institute is a merit to fight breast cancer.