I am Dr. Paola Marcato, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at Dalhousie University. the Canadian Breast Cancer Society, the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute and the QEII Foundation, have funded my research lab and colleagues: Drs. Carman Giacomantonio, Lucy Helyer and Ian Weaver.
Our research is to investigate if a vitamin A metabolite, retinoic acid may be an effective therapy for certain triple-negative breast cancer patients. Retinoic acid is a highly effective treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia; however, when retinoic acid was applied generally to treat other cancers, including breast cancer it was not effective.
Our data suggests that retinoic acid-based therapy was not successful in the treatment of breast cancer because it was applied to all cancer patients, without considering key differences between individual patient tumors. Our data suggests that there are specific and measurable criteria that can predict if a triple-negative breast cancer tumor will respond well to retinoic acid treatment.
We propose experiments that will identify and measure these qualities in triple-negative breast cancer patients. Furthermore, we will use a pre-clinical model to test how effective our prediction tools are in determining tumor response to retinoic acid.
Completion of this project will lead to improved treatment for triple-negative breast cancer patients and hence the improved survival of these patients currently lacking targeted therapy options.
