Assistant Professor Cecilia Williams is doing double duty finding ways to combat triple-negative breast cancer and helping students get hands-on experience with scientific research. | Courtesy of uh.edu

A research team at the University is working on finding new ways to treat triple-negative breast cancer, the only subtype of breast cancer that doesnt have a targeted gene therapy.

Triple-negative breast cancer receives its name from its lack of the three receptors that fuel most breast cancers. Biology senior Marisa Simon, who received an undergraduate research fellowship this summer to work on the project, explained the added difficulties of this form of cancer.

Unlike the other breast cancer subtypes, TNBC does not over-express progesterone, estrogen or human epidermal growth factor receptors, Simon said. Therefore, the cancer cant be targeted based on the receptors for these hormones.

The research team, led by assistant professor Cecilia Williams, is working with the maternal embryonic leucine-zipper kinase protein to find a different way of treating TNBC.

Williams discovered that MELK was found in stem-like cells, but disappeared as those cells developed. Then, the team found that the mammary stem-like cells shared major gene expression with the TNBC subtype and that MELK expression correlates with poor prognosis in breast cancer.

We believe that targeting MELK, or the mechanism that MELK is involved in, can help improving the poor prognosis of this breast cancer subtype, Williams said. Now, our first aim (is) to understand the role of MELK for mammary stem cells and for TNBC and then to explore its use for better treatments.

Simon said Williams is a well-known cancer researcher who has authored many publications and her work has greatly contributed to the knowledge and understanding of various types breast cancer.

She was extremely generous in allowing me to join her lab, Simon said. Through her mentoring and the help of her experienced graduate students, I have developed a passion for research.

Cell and molecular biology graduate student Jun Wang, who is also working with Williams, is researching other methods to treat TNBC.

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UH researcher works to crack breast cancer treatment

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