With a $3.4 million, five-year R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute, UF Health Cancer Institute member Lusine Yaghjyan, M.D., Ph.D., will explore how breast stem cells contribute to the early stages of breast tumor development.
Yaghjyan’s new project will evaluate several tissue markers that capture stem cells in normal breast tissue from benign breast biopsy samples of cancer-free women. She will examine their associations with subsequent breast cancer risk and a range of breast cancer risk factors.
“Our goal is to determine whether these markers could be used to predict breast cancer risk in women with benign biopsies, as well as to better understand how breast cancer risk factors may influence these stem cells,” said Yaghjyan, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions.
The results will lay the foundation for the development of breast cancer prevention approaches based on stem cells.
Yaghjyan is collaborating on the new grant with Ann Fu, Ph.D., and Martha Campbell-Thompson, Ph.D., in the UF Molecular Pathology Core.
At the Cancer Institute, Yaghjyan is a member of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences research program and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Working Group.
