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J Med Oncl Ther 2017 | Volume 2 Issue 4
Oncology and Biomarkers Summit
November 27-28, 2017 | Atlanta, USA
Annual Congress on
BRCA1 discovery to precision oncology: The road ahead
Veena N Rao
Morehouse School of Medicine, USA
Statement of the Problem:
Breast cancer is the second
leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women.
BRCA1 mutations results in triple negative breast cancer
(TNBC) and high grade serous ovarian cancer HGSOC.
Majority of young AA women with BRCA1 mutations have
a so-called TNBC with an aggressive phenotype. Currently
there is no targeted therapy for TNBC. Our group has
reported BRCA1 proteins, unlike the disease-associated
proteins to interact with a druggable target Ubc9 which
facilitates both the entry of BRCA1 proteins into the nucleus
to cause ubiquitination of ER and TNBC tumor suppression.
Many BRCA1 missense mutant alleles, termed variants of
uncertain significance (VUS) are difficult to classify as benign
or malignant. Therefore for a woman who carries a BRCA1
VUS allele, the risk of developing TNBC is unknown.
Hypothesis and Methodology:
This work is based on the
hypothesis that BRCA1 is a tumor suppressor gene and its
coding region can harbor several mutations some of which
are driver mutations and others passenger mutations similar
to WT BRCA1. We tested this hypothesis by studying the
various biological functions of BRCA1 mutant proteins so as
to identify the driver mutations that lead to these TNBC.
Conclusion and Significance:
Clinically, the ability to predict
which of these are driver mutations that can result in TNBC
offers unprecedented prospects for early detection to
make informed decisions regarding prophylactic measures.
The results from this study will stratify the risk for TNBC as
well as develop personalized targeted therapy for women
with BRCA1-associated TNBC thus reducing the mortality
associated with these cancers to achieve health equity for
all.
Speaker Biography
Veena N Rao is Professor and Co-Director of the Cancer Biology Program, GCC
Distinguished Cancer Scholar in the Department of OB/GYN, at Morehouse School of
Medicine. She has completed her PhD in Biochemistry at CCMB, India, Max Planck
Institute, University of Edinburgh, and MIT, Boston. She did her postdoctoral work at
the University of California, Yale University and National Cancer Institute. She has a
long career beginning at University of Pennsylvania, Temple University as an Assistant
Professor. She then moved to Thomas Jefferson University as Associate Professor
where she identified the BRCA1 isoforms. She became Professor and Co-Director of
the Division of Cancer Genetics at Drexel University and was recruited at Morehouse
School of Medicine to train minority students in cancer research. Her work led to a
patent that can stratify risk for TNBC and to develop targeted therapy for TNBC, a
disease which currently has no targeted treatments available.
e:
vrao@msm.edu