Breast Cancer Coalition Research Initiative:
Planting the Seed, Funding Innovative Research
By Helana Shumway, Public Relations Coordinator
Since 2003, the Breast Cancer Coalition Research Initiative has awarded over $1.2 million in funding to regional researchers examining the cause, prevention, prevention of metastasis, and cure of breast cancer. Having awarded 32 seed grants over the last 22 years, the Coalition plans to extend these grant opportunities to fund gynecologic cancer research in the near future.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with three past grant recipients. Their projects varied in hypotheses, objectives, and methodologies, but they shared a common belief – the Coalition’s funding was instrumental in collecting data that launched their research project.
Tao Dai, PhD
Isaac Harris, PhD
Gokul Das, PhD
Tao Dai, PhD, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Dr. Tao Dai is a Postdoctoral Fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where he focuses his research on identifying metabolic vulnerabilities that drive cancer progression. In 2021, he was a doctoral candidate in Dr. Subhamoy Dasgupta’s Lab at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and submitted a proposal for the Coalition’s Research Initiative, titled “Uncovering the implications of breast cancer metabolic adaptations in the tumor microenvironment.” He was awarded a $25,000 grant.
Dr. Dai acknowledges that in these early days, his hypothesis was considered a “high-risk idea.” The Coalition’s seed grant allowed Dr. Dai to pursue his idea and perform more large-scale experiments to search for the key pathways that help cancer cells survive and spread. “My research helped advance our understanding of how breast cancer cells become aggressive and gain metastatic potential by adapting to the harsh tumor microenvironment,” explains Dr. Dai. “While this doesn’t immediately lead to a new treatment, it provides insight into potential strategies for preventing or reducing the risk of metastasis in triple negative breast cancer.”
His mentor, Dr. Dasgupta, describes Dr. Dai as a “rising superstar” and credits the Coalition’s Research Initiative as the starting point of his career. Dr. Dasgupta asserts, “The grant that [Dr. Dai] received from the Breast Cancer Coalition changed his perception of cancer research and molded him into a productive translational scientist.”
Dr. Dai reflects on the importance of his Coalition grant, imparting, “Another important aspect of this research initiative was the opportunity to interact with breast cancer survivors and advocates from the Coalition. Their support has been a continued source of motivation for me.”
Isaac Harris, PhD, URMC Medical Center, Wilmot Cancer Institute
It was the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Dr. Isaac Harris had recently moved to Rochester to open his research lab. While many funding opportunities were paused, the Coalition was dedicated to continuing the Research Initiative. Dr. Harris submitted a proposal for his project, “Uncovering the roles of extracellular glutathione in triple negative breast cancer.”
The Harris Lab studies the roles of antioxidants in health and disease. Antioxidants are required for normal tissues, but can also be a double-edged sword, in that they can help cancers survive. “Antioxidants have been suggested to be good for your body, for your general vitality, but there’s accumulating evidence to suggest that they’re also potentially supportive of cancer cells in your body,” explains Dr. Harris.
In the early stages of his project, his hypothesis centered around the role of antioxidants in cancer cell growth, specifically one termed glutathione. “If we actually look at the cancer cell itself, how does it make these antioxidants? And if we can block either the production or utilization of these antioxidants, could we have a new way of killing the cancer cell?”
Dr. Harris shares that before receiving the Coalition’s grant, his research project was mainly a concept with not enough preliminary data to support larger grant applications. As a faculty-level researcher, the seed grant of $50,000 was enough for him and his lab to generate additional proof of their concept, which ultimately led to a federal grant of nearly $2 million. “Without the Coalition’s funding, I don’t know if that would have been possible,” he affirms.
Over the past several years, Dr. Harris has published multiple papers, spoken at several international conferences, and his work has helped support the recent designation of the Wilmot Cancer Institute by the National Cancer Institute. He and his lab have been engaged in pre-clinical trials that have generated highly promising results in addressing how antioxidants play a role in triple negative breast cancer cell growth. As an extremely aggressive subtype that disproportionately impacts African American and Black women,1 the impacts of Dr. Harris’ research could, in his words, “potentially affect an underserved community.”
Today, Dr. Harris’ lab continues their studies and aims to translate these findings into clinical trials. Further, he believes the role of antioxidants in cancer cell growth could be more universal, suggesting that this mechanism might be found in other breast cancer subtypes. The implications could be vastly impactful.
With only an idea and minimal funds five years ago, to being on the verge of translating his data into new therapies for cancer patients, Dr. Harris credits the Coalition’s initial seed grant for launching this research.
Gokul Das, PhD, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Dr. Gokul Das has been connected to the Breast Cancer Coalition for many years. As a member of the Research Advisory Board, he participates yearly in the Coalition’s Research Review Day to determine the proposals that receive funding.
In 2014, he was a recipient of the Coalition’s $50,000 grant for his proposal, “Role of estrogen receptor beta and tumor suppressor p53 signaling in triple negative breast cancer.” Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of invasive breast cancer that constitutes about 15-20% of all breast cancers. Estrogen receptor alpha (ER alpha), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER2 are absent (hence the name “triple negative”) in this cancer. Therefore, TNBC does not respond to drugs targeting these receptors.2 Generic chemotherapy remains the major therapeutic option, although there are some new drugs that are effective only in certain patients.
Unlike TNBC, in luminal breast cancers, ER alpha is often present (known as ER+), and 80% of these patients have normal p53, which is a major tumor suppressor protein.3 Dr. Das’s team has reported that ER alpha binds and inactivates this tumor suppressor, but drugs such as tamoxifen* have been found to disrupt this interaction, thereby reactivating p53 and its tumor-suppressing capabilities.
Although TNBC does not have ER alpha, it has estrogen receptor beta (ER beta), another member of the steroid hormone receptor family. In triple negative breast cancer, Dr. Das reports that 80% of patients have mutated p53, resulting in tumor-promoting or “oncogenic” properties and loss of tumor-suppressing capabilities.3 Dr. Das hypothesized that in TNBC, ER beta could bind to mutant p53 to disable its oncogenic function. His hypothesis was correct, and in fact, he found that using tamoxifen augmented this binding process, leading to death of tumor cells.
As ER alpha, the canonical target of tamoxifen, is absent in TNBC, tamoxifen has not been used in the clinic to treat TNBC patients. Dr. Das’ discovery challenged this clinical paradigm by showing that tamoxifen can be repurposed to treat TNBC based on the presence of ER beta and mutant p53. Furthermore, his research has indicated that using tamoxifen along with doxorubicin (a common chemotherapeutic drug) produces synergistic effect in killing TNBC cells and blocking tumor growth: “The combined effects of these drugs is more than the sum of their individual effects,” he explains.
Currently, Dr. Das is in the process of beginning a clinical trial to further investigate his findings for patients living with metastatic triple negative breast cancer, and he has reason to be optimistic. After he published his initial findings in 2019, he received a call in 2020 from a woman whose first sentence was, “You saved my life.”
She had been living with TNBC for many years, but it had recently metastasized to her brain. With few treatment options remaining, she found Dr. Das’ paper on his research and brought it to her oncologist. She began the recommended protocol. “To everyone’s surprise, in a few weeks’ time, all of her metastatic lesions had subsided,” he announces. Five years later, she is living with no evidence of disease.
“To see this in a real patient is very gratifying and humbling given the complexity of this disease. It is an incentive to push forward as hard as one can to investigate if this initial observation holds true in larger numbers of TNBC patients.”
Planting the Seed
Without a doubt, the Coalition’s Research Initiative has been integral in funding innovative research that has the potential to find new treatments, and ultimately, a cure for breast cancer. Our seed grants have led to cutting-edge research that is making strides in eradicating breast cancer. The Coalition is small but mighty, and we remain steadfast in prioritizing research that will support our survivor community.
References:
- https://www.bcrf.org/about-breast-cancer/black-women-breast-cancer-disparities/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8824427/#:~:text=This%20cancer%20is%20responsible%20for,therapeutics%20and%20highly%20invasive%20nature
- https://www.roswellpark.org/research/labs/das-lab/triple-negative-breast-cancer
* A commonly used medication to treat hormone-positive breast cancers, tamoxifen is a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM).
This Blog first appeared as an article in the Summer 2025 issue of Voices of the Ribbon.
