|
Ramon Garcia-Areas, a Ph.D. student in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine; Dr. Kathy Shilling, medical director of Boca Regional’s Christine E. Lynn Women’s Health and Wellness Institute; and Vijaya Iragavarpu-Charyulu, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical science in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. |
Reflective of the growing collaboration between the two institutions, researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and Boca Raton Regional Hospital have announced a joint research initiative aimed at predicting breast cancer behavior and developing therapies that will block the metastatic process of the disease. The preliminary findings of the study were presented at 22nd Biennial European Association of Cancer Research Conference in Barcelona, Spain this summer.
“This initial effort is a watershed moment in our burgeoning research partnership,” said Kathy Shilling, M.D., medical director of Boca Regional’s Christine E. Lynn Women’s Health and Wellness Institute. “It combines our significant strength in clinical breast care with the cutting-edge basic research capabilities of the Schmidt College of Medicine. All of us are excited about this growing collaboration, not just in breast cancer but across the spectrum of our specialties.”
Vijaya Iragavarpu-Charyulu, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical science in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine is collaborating with Schilling, and the project has been designed to evaluate novel metastatic markers in breast cancer patients and to investigate their possible correlation with the aggressiveness of the disease. Iragavarapu-Charyulu has been studying the role of the immune system and mechanisms involved in breast cancer metastasis. Ramon Garcia-Areas, a Ph.D. student in Iragavarapu-Charyulu’s laboratory, has discovered that a molecule originally expressed during the development of the nervous system is re-expressed during tumor growth and enhances tumor metastatic potential in a breast cancer model. In order to establish clinical relevancy of these findings, Schilling and her team will provide tissue, blood and tumor samples from breast cancer patients, which will be used to correlate the interesting findings of Iragavarapu-Charyulu’s team and investigate the means to halt the metastatic process.
