Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Up to 15% of breast cancer patients are diagnosed with this form – and we want them all to have a fighting chance
Finding a Cure
Over the years, an investment of greater than $100 billion into breast cancer treatment has yielded incredible results. Survivorship has improved by 20% and breast cancer has become, for most women diagnosed, a manageable disease. However, the statistics are not as good for those diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer.
Each year, more than a quarter of a million women (and a small percentage of men) in the USA will be diagnosed with breast cancer. This form of cancer accounts for approximately one-third of all cancers diagnosed and it can be a deadly disease. Around one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime and it remains the second most deadly form of cancer (lung cancer is #1).
Up to 15% of all cases are triple negative which makes this form of breast cancer exceptionally difficult to treat. For those with cancer that has spread to their lymph nodes, survivorship five (5) years after diagnosis is only 65%.
Statement
“I am focused on mechanisms of lymphatic mediated metastasis of breast cancer. Specifically, utilizing mouse models to investigate developmentally regulated programs of inflammation and lymphangiogenesis that are utilized in the adult mammary gland and may be hijacked by breast tumor cells.”
Traci Lyons-PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine, Medical Oncology University of Colorado
Resistance is a Challenge
There are many ways that breast cancer becomes drug resistant, but one of them is through the activation of the PI3Kinase Pathway. The PI3Kinase pathway is often overly expressed and hyper-activated in difficult to treat tumors, including breast cancers, especially triple negative breast cancer.
We have acquired a unique mechanistically distinct class of potent, selective, and brain penetrating modulators that target the PI3Kinase family. Based on initial studies, the GCT-007 compound is a potent and selective PI3K inhibitor and modulates the inflammatory and immune responses.
Thus far, we have shown that GCT-007 induces arrested growth of cancer cells, increases the sensitivity of those cells to radiation, and blocks effectively in clonogenicity assays.