Exploring a new way to overcoming endocrine resistance in breast cancer [ 2006 - 2008 ]

Research Grant

Researchers: Prof Pu Xia (Principal investigator)

Brief description Despite significant improvements in long-term outcome with the use of endocrine therapy (such as tamoxifen and letrozole), breast cancer remains the most common cause of cancer-related death amongst Australian women. A major clinical problem limiting the effectiveness of endocrine therapy is tumour resistance, either intrinsic or acquired. Indeed, about half of patients immediately fail to respond to the treatment, while in the initially responding patients the tumours ultimately progress to resistance to the drug leading to the disease relapse. Therefore, it is imperative to better understand the mechanisms responsible for the resistance and to explore new strategies that overcome this clinical problem in order to prolong the overall survival of patients with breast cancer. Our recent work have shown that a recently-identified enzyme, termed sphingosine kinase, plays an important role in promoting breast cancer cell growth. We also found that cells that have a high level of the enzyme had bad outcomes in response to anti-estrogen drug, tamoxifen. Thus this project seeks to identify the role of this enzyme in contributing towards drug resistance, and test if inhibition of this enzyme could improve and-or restore the drug response in breast cancer. It will ultimately pave a new way to overcoming the drug resistance for improving the treatment and prevention of breast cancer.

Funding Amount $AUD 441,764.67

Funding Scheme NHMRC Project Grants

Notes Standard Project Grant