2021
Preventing LOH in BRCA mutation carriers
Dr. Jasin’s team is developing approaches to detect and identify factors that influence the Loss of Heterozygosity (LOH). The project was initially funded in 2019. Based on the significant progress made in the project, in...
Transcriptome guided vaccine for BRCA germline mutation carriers
Dr. Eng’s group is working towards developing a preventative vaccine for women with inherited BRCA1 mutations. The project was initially funded in 2019. Based on the significant progress made in the project, the grant is...
2020
Novel immuno-chemoprevention for leukemia caused by BRCA-1 deficiency
Prevention is a vital strategy in the fight against cancer, and Dr. Lee’s team is interested in combining chemoprevention and immunoprevention in fighting cancer. In their previous CPI-funded project, the Lee lab...
Cancer risk predictors in the reproductive epithelium of BRCA mutation carriers
Women who inherit a germline pathogenic mutation of either BRCA1 or BRCA2 suffer an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer up to ten times that of the normal population. Currently, a woman’s decision to undergo...
2019
Immune chemoprevention for breast cancer via repurposing a low-cost, safe, anti-parasitic drug
Dr. Lee’s research focuses on understanding how the tumor microenvironment (TME) impacts host immune responses in cancer patients. His ultimate goal is to develop novel treatments to modulate the TME and restore/enhance...
Preventing LOH in BRCA mutation carriers
Inherited mutations in the tumor suppressor genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) confer a greatly increased lifetime risk for breast and ovarian cancers. In patients with these inherited mutations, only one of the two inherited...
2018
Immunoprevention of BRCA1-associated breast cancer
A main goal of this project is to identify recurrent abnormal cancer proteins that are found early during BRCA1 mutation-associated breast cancer development and that could be targeted using a synthetic long peptide vaccine....
Immunoprevention of BRCA1-associated mammary cancer
Dr. Jonkers has been awarded funds to develop a mouse model of BRCA1-deficient triple negative breast cancer that expresses a mutated form of p53 (R279H) that is targetable (expressed) by a possible anti-Tp53...
Immunoprevention of BRCA1-associated breast cancer
Dr. Garber’s group is part of a multi-institutional team investigating TP53 as a preventative vaccine target in BRCA1-associated breast cancers. The overarching hypothesis of the project is that progression of...
Immunoprevention of BRCA1-associated breast cancer
Carriers of germline BRCA1 gene mutations run a 50-65% lifetime risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer. Preventing these cancers will have a major impact on health and survival. Surgically removing both breasts and...
2017
Understanding the biology of BRCA-linked cancer risk: Opportunities for therapy
Dr. Scully's research project involved the development of quantitative assays of BRCA1 and BRCA2 function in both homologous recombination and installed replication fork repair. These are two mechanisms by which BRCA...
Prevention of breast cancer by Denosumab in women carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation (“BRCA-P trial”)
Dr. Singer was awarded funds to lead the ABCSG (Austrian Breast Cancer Study Group) at the Medical University of Vienna to support the collaborative working group meetings of the BRCA-P Steering Committee as well as...
Identification of natural compounds that are toxic to BRCA2 mutant stem cells but not normal stem cells
Dr. Pati was awarded funds to find natural compounds that kill cells that are deficient for BRCA2 as well as validate already identified hits from a pilot screening program. The idea is that one of these compounds could be...
Evaluating BRCA1 haploinsufficiency as a putative target for the prevention of BRCA1-associated cancer
A CPI award was granted to Dr. Kotsopoulos to identify agents that regulate BRCA1 protein levels in cells. The ultimate goal of the project was to test the hypothesis that increasing the amount of normal BRCA1 in BRCA1...