We provide evidence that loss of E-cadherin hyperactivates the IGF1R pathway and increases sensitivity to IGF1R/InsR targeted therapy, thus identifying the IGF1R pathway as a potential novel target in E-cadherin–deficient breast cancers such as invasive lobular cancer.
Congratulations to Dr. Nilgun Tasdemir on receiving the SABCS 2018 AACR Associate Member Award.
Thanks to Alan Faneca, David Decastro and other Pittsburgh Steelers for supporting research on metastatic breast cancer! Adrian and Steffi attended the Bid for Hope event, organized by Glimmer of Hope, on October 1st 2018 and were able to meet some of the players, talk about their research, and win a signed helmet! Go Steelers!
Congratulations to Drs. Adrian Lee and Steffi Oesterreich on receiving the 2018 PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar Award. The award was announced at this year’s UPMC Hillman Gala that took place on Thursday, September 20 at PPG Paints Arena. Drs. Lee and Oesterreich were joined on that special evening by their daughters Paula and Nicola Lee-Oesterreich (photo below). You can read further coverage at the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette.
Congratulation Dr. Nilgun Tasdemir and coauthors for their new publication generating an invaluable resource for lobular breast cancer research. Comprehensive characterization of ILC models.
Our latest paper focused on lobular breast cancer is now available. Role for SREBP1 and other regulators of fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis in invasive lobular breast cancer.
The study of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) offers pathways to develop new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers that benefit cancer treatments. In order to fully exploit and interpret the information provided by CTCs, the development of a platform is reported that integrates acoustics and microfluidics to isolate rare CTCs from peripheral blood in high throughput while preserving their structural, biological, and functional integrity. Cancer cells are first isolated from leukocytes with a throughput of 7.5 mL h-1 , achieving a recovery rate of at least 86% while maintaining the cells’ ability to proliferate. High-throughput acoustic separation enables statistical analysis of isolated CTCs from prostate cancer patients to be performed to determine their size distribution and phenotypic heterogeneity for a range of biomarkers, including the visualization of CTCs with a loss of expression for the prostate specific membrane antigen. The method also enables the isolation of even rarer, but clinically important, CTC clusters.
