Proteintech and Cell Announce Travel Grant Winners For AACR Annual Meeting 2016

Breast cancer research in latent metastasis, resistance each receive $1,000 stipends

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Proteintech, the benchmark in antibodies, in partnership with Cell Press, today announced the winners of the 2016 AACR Travel Grant awards. Karen Bussard, Ph.D., assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University, and Ariella Hanker, Ph.D., research instructor at Vanderbilt University, have each been awarded $1,000 to cover expenses to attend the 2016 American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, being held April 16-20 in New Orleans.

“We don’t have access to patient samples that have been treated with that specific drug combination.”

Breast cancer preferentially metastasizes to bones, but in many cases hides dormant, sometimes for decades before emerging without warning and causing sudden, severe damage. Bussard’s work is unraveling why this happens by examining the way disseminated breast cancer cells alter nearby bone-building osteoblast cells. If her group can identify biological triggers for dormancy and relapse, Bussard believes it could lead to the development of new screening tools for at-risk individuals, improved treatments to suppress relapse and, as technology improves, potentially lead the way to eradicate the cancer cells altogether.

Bussard says that many groups are working to understand the latent metastasis problem using a variety of different approaches, and that “the overarching picture isn’t quite there yet, but individual pieces of the puzzle are really starting to emerge. Hopefully we, as researchers, can learn from each other’s work, and come together to synthesize the individual pieces into a whole for the benefit of the patient.” Bussard will present her team’s poster (#3) from 8 a.m. to noon on Monday, April 18, in Section 29.

A surprising discovery spurred Hanker’s research when her group found that resistance to a certain combination of breast cancer drugs in mouse models disappears when the cells are taken out of the animal. The mouse tumors, she realized, were overexpressing common proteins that normally help cells cling together to form strong tissues, but which can also apparently activate cancer-promoting pathways in each other.

“Potentially, treating resistant tumors with a combination of HER2/PI3K inhibitors and a Src inhibitor might delay the resistance,” says Hanker, whose team now must identify if the same anomaly occurs in human breast cancers as well.

“We don’t have access to patient samples that have been treated with that specific drug combination.” But Hanker wants to evaluate resistant cancer cells from patients who went through similar treatment, “taking those samples to see if collagens are up-regulated in the residual disease.” More findings from Hanker’s research will be presented in a poster session from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 17, in Section 16 (poster #13).

“Particularly innovative applications of antibodies set these researchers apart from all our highly qualified entries,” said Jason Li, CEO of Proteintech. “We always aim to support quality, reproducible science, and we hope the opportunity to exchange ideas at cancer research’s premier convention will further their work.”

The winners will also receive free registration to the Cell Symposia: Hallmarks of Cancer (December 11-13, 2016 in Ghent, Belgium) and will be congratulated as Cell Press/Proteintech AACR award winners in the symposia materials.

About Proteintech Group

Proteintech is the benchmark for manufacturing original antibodies. With an emphasis on developing antibodies from whole proteins, Proteintech provides researchers with unmatched reliability and reproducibility. Founded by scientists in 2001 after their continued frustration with failed experiments due to low-grade antibodies, Proteintech is on a path to foster better science by producing the highest quality antibodies for every known human protein. For more information, please visit www.ptglab.com.

About Cell

The flagship journal of Cell Press, Cell is a bimonthly journal that publishes findings of unusual significance in any area of experimental biology, including but not limited to cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience, immunology, virology and microbiology, cancer, human genetics, systems biology, signaling, and disease mechanisms and therapeutics. For more information, please visit http://www.cell.com/cell.