University of Illinois Cancer Center members Kaori Yamada, PhD, and Tohru Yamada, PhD, were awarded a five-year $2.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to reveal the mechanisms of breast cancer brain metastasis.
Kaori Yamada, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine and Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago at UIC, is the lead Principal Investigator (PI) on the RO1 grant. She is part of the Cancer Center Cancer Biology Research Program. Tohru Yamada, PhD, Associate Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering in the Colleges of Medicine and Engineering, is co-PI on the grant. He is part of the Cancer Center’s Translational Oncology Research Program.
They explain the research project in the grant’s public health relevance statement, which is excerpted below.
This grant aims to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of breast cancer brain metastasis. Once metastasized into the brain, it is difficult to treat because delivery of the drugs into the brain is challenging due to the tight blood-brain barrier (BBB). We questioned why/how breast cancer cells can invade such a tight barrier. We found the glycosylated protein that metastatic breast cancer cells secrete to temporarily permeabilize the barrier. We will further define the comprehensive mechanisms of how the glycosylated protein facilitates breast cancer brain metastasis. We believe successful completion of this project will provide strategies to prevent breast cancer brain metastasis.