Zihua Gong, MD, PhD

Overcoming Resistance to Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Treatments

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women worldwide. Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for about 15% of all invasive breast cancer cases. Researchers don’t know the exact cause, but they do link triple-negative breast cancer to mutations in the BRCA genes.

PARP inhibitors (types of cancer drugs) are approved for clinical treatment of BRCA-mutant breast cancers. Unfortunately, many patients develop resistance to PARP inhibitors during the course of their treatment.

“This PARP inhibitor resistance is a major clinical problem,” says Zihua Gong, MD, PhD. “Therefore, development of this approach to overcome this PARP inhibitor resistance and determine the mechanisms behind it is urgently needed.”

The primary idea of this project is to use TGF-beta inhibitors (a different type of drug) to reduce the resistance patients develop to PARP inhibitors. The hope is that tumors can be controlled when these are combined, thus leading to more effective treatment options for breast cancer patients.

“We want to identify biomarkers to identify breast cancer earlier in the future,” says Dr. Gong. “Successful outcomes would be measured by improved patient responses, prolonged survival rates and potentially a decrease in the occurrence of relapses.”