Smith Breast Center receives $7.2 million Komen Promise Grant
HOUSTON -- (October 6, 2008) -- A $7.2 million, five-year promise grant from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation will help Dr. Powel Brown, professor in the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, use the tools of genomics and proteomics to develop effective therapies for estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer.
The grant is one of $100 million in grants from Komen to 81 institutions worldwide.
"This promise grant from Komen will give us the opportunity to identify new ways to treat this particularly difficult breast cancer, estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer," said Brown, also associate director of cancer prevention at the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at BCM. "This type of breast cancer is known as a triple threat breast cancer, as it currently has no known treatment targets."
Brown's funding is one of seven promise grants designed to enable scientists and doctors to work together in new ways to bring treatments out of the laboratory to patients as quickly as possible.
Brown and his collaborators will study changes in breast tumors at the DNA, RNA and the protein level. Understanding whether certain breast cancer gain or lose gene function or if certain proteins exist at high levels will help them determine where to intervene to stop cancer at the cellular level.
Collaborators include Dr. Jenny Chang, medical director of the Smith Breast Center, Dr. Ching Lau and, Dr. Susan Hilsenbeck, all of BCM; and Dr. Gordon Mills and Dr. Ana Gonzalez-Angulo of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Also receiving funding from Komen is Dr. Debananda Pati, assistant professor of pediatrics – hematology and oncology at BCM whose work deals with mammary stem cells and their relationship to breast cancer. Pati's grant of $180,000 over three years is designed to encourage young scientists in the field.
The commitment from Komen is the largest commitment of breast cancer research funding by a single nonprofit organization.
For more information on breast cancer research at Baylor College of Medicine, visit http://www.bcm.edu/news/packages/breastcancer.cfm.