DF/HCC Incubator Award Program

We are happy to announce that BCSORP Lab with The Ubellacker Lab won the DF/HCC Incubator Award Program. DF/HCC has established this annual funding initiative for Incubator projects among teams from different DF/HCC institutions to tackle questions that align with the Center’s strategic priorities. A key element of this award mechanism is to support teams that commit to sustained collaboration through the imminent submission of new extramural multi-investigator grants.

Each year over 40,000 individuals die from breast cancer only in the United States, with metastasis the leading cause of mortality. Although some breast cancer cells metastasize directly via the bloodstream, regional lymph node metastases can sometimes give rise to distant metastases through the blood by migrating into blood vessels. However, current cancer staging algorithms do not adequately predict the risk of cancer progression from lymph nodes. Furthermore, it is unknown whether exposure to lymph influences the subsequent survival of these cells in the blood and the ability of the cancer cells to metastasize to distant organs. Recent observations suggest that it may be possible to target metabolism in cancer cells, including in breast cancer, to prevent cancer spread from lymph nodes. To investigate this, we have assembled a strong team of investigators: Jessalyn Ubellacker, Ph.D. is an expert in lymphatic biology and lipidomics and metastasis modeling in vivo. Taru Muranen, Ph.D. is an expert in three-dimensional patient-derived co-culturing systems as well as stromal and extracellular matrix influences on breast cancer progression. Ted James, M.D. is a breast oncologist with expertise in revealing the role lymph node plays in breast cancer progression. This proposal will provide foundational data to uncover novel metabolic and lipidomic pathways that enable breast cells to survive in the lymph; these pathways have the potential be therapeutically targeted to suppress breast cancer metastasis. In this project, we will work to characterize changes in lipid metabolism of breast cancer cells in lymph nodes that are required for distant metastasis and/or serve as lymph-based biomarkers of cancer progression.