BCA Research Spotlight

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: DR. JENNIFER ROSENBLUTH 2021 BCA YOUNG INVESTIGATOR

I’m a medical oncologist and scientist at University of California San Francisco and in both my clinical and research work, I focus on breast cancer. There are two ultimate goals for my research; the first is to facilitate new therapies for rare but highly aggressive subtypes of breast cancer, where we urgently need new options to offer to our patients, and the second is to develop new strategies for breast cancer prevention, where the research community has the potential to make a huge societal impact by preventing breast cancers from developing in the first place.

We utilize a new method for culturing breast tissue — called organoids — to define the cell lineages present in the normal mammary gland as well as in cancer prone tissues. In my postdoctoral studies with Dr. Joan Brugge at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a former BCA grantee, we spent a lot of time trying to understand the impact of different components of the organoid culture system on breast tissues that are grown in a dish. When we took tissues from patient donors and generated organoid cultures, and then compared these cultures at the molecular level to the tissue of origin, we were surprised at the extent to which molecular features from the tissue were preserved in culture. Because we are growing the tissues in an artificial environment, there are certainly differences, but they were much fewer than we expected. We continue to work on improving the system, but in the interim we were able to take this method and immediately use it to study some important cell types that were previously very difficult to study in the lab. These cell types are critical to investigate because they comprise the likely cellular precursors for a large subset of human breast cancers. By combining this model system with single-cell high resolution technologies, our research has yielded an increased understanding of the cellular heterogeneity present in normal breast tissue and has identified cell types associated with premalignant states.

At the University of California San Francisco, in work funded by Breast Cancer Alliance, we are currently investigating specific pathways that promote these premalignant cell types in organoids that may be activated during the earliest stages of tumor development. We want to understand how changes in the diverse cell populations present in breast tissues contribute to the development of breast cancer. Some patients, for example those who have inherited a mutation in genes called BRCA1 or BRCA2, have a very high lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, and that risk is reflected in molecular changes in the breast tissue. At both the normal and early cancer stages breast tissue is characterized by alterations in cellular heterogeneity that act to promote cancer development and can also be blocked to prevent cancer initiation or progression, and we now have the tools in place to be able to connect these alterations directly to potential strategies for breast cancer prevention that can be tested in the lab.

I am very grateful to Breast Cancer Alliance, whose support has been critical for launching this project. As an Assistant Professor starting a lab, it is because of Breast Cancer Alliance that we have been able to accelerate our progress from day one. Importantly, we have also been able to interface with a wonderful team of clinical investigators and scientists in the Breast Oncology Program at UCSF who also believe that we can do more to identify patients at highest risk of developing breast cancer and develop tailored breast cancer prevention strategies that are based on each patient’s risk category. We believe that this will facilitate translation of research findings from the lab to the clinic even faster, toward our shared goal of improving the lives of patients with breast cancer and at high risk of developing breast cancer.

“I AM VERY GRATEFUL TO BREAST CANCER ALLIANCE, WHOSE SUPPORT HAS BEEN CRITICAL FOR LAUNCHING THIS PROJECT. AS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR STARTING A LAB, IT IS BECAUSE OF BREAST CANCER ALLIANCE THAT WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACCELERATE OUR PROGRESS FROM DAY ONE.”

To learn more about Dr. Rosenbluth’s work, join us for a virtual site visit on March 22 at 12pm EST. Email your interest to Kristen@breastcanceralliance.org.