Feautred in Dialogue magazine, Issue 20 - September 2011

Finding better ways to combat breast cancer

Breast cancer affects one in nine New Zealand women, often striking them at a time when they are raising children and contributing to the workplace and other communities.

A team of Liggins Institute scientists has made signficant progress in identifying what makes breast cancer cells grow and spread to other parts of the body.  The work began when Professor Peter Lobie, an international expert on endocrinology and development of breast cancer joined the Institute in 2003.  Like many of his Liggins peers, his focus was on hormones that control growth.  Uncontrolled and inappropriate cell division is a hallmark of cancer.

Very quickly he established a thriving team of researchers, graduate students and international collaborators.  In an acclaimed paper published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, he showed how growth hormone produced locally and abnormally in the breast triggers a series of events which prolong cell life and cause excessive cell growth.  He suggested that finding a drug or molecule that blocked the action of growth hormone could be the key to halting the deadly progression of some cancers.

The researchers have since discovered a number of other cancer promoting factors, known as oncogenes, that are secreted by cancer cells which increase the survival, growth and spread of breast cancer tumours.  Further, they have shown that the activity of these growth factors is stimulated by hormones such as oestrogen that circulate in the body.

The group's current research is strongly focused on finding drugs or antibodies that specifically inhibit the action of these growth factors.  "This is important", explains Senior Research Fellow Dr Jo Perry, because we have shown that these molecules prolong the survival of cancer cells, increasing the ability of some tumours to develop resistance to conventional therapies such as anti-oestrogen drugs like tamoxifen.

"At present such targeted therapies, used in combination with conventional therapies, offer one of the most promising aspects for cancer treatment and patient survival in the future".

An international biotechnology company is currently developing and testing specific antibodies to some of the target molecules the group has identified, bringing the potential for an effective treatment another step closer.

The Liggins Breast Cancer Research Group has also provided a fertile training ground for upcoming researchers.  A number of its graduate students have published their research in leading scientific journals, won international prizes and taken up positions at respected cancer research organisations around the world.

Last year Professor Lobie took up a position heading the Breast Cancer Group and the prestigious Cancer Science Institute of Singapore while maintaining a part-time position at the Liggins Institute.  The group is now jointly led by Dr Perry and Dr Dongxu Liu.

While the work on identifying therapeutic targets continues, the team is also investigating the possibility that breast cancer might be linked to nutrition during early life.  Dr Perry is working with Liggins Institute colleagues, Drs Mark Vickers and Deborah Sloboda, to determine whether a high fat diet during pregnancy is associated with changes in the architecture of the offspring's mammary glands that might lead to breast cancer.

Funding for the Institutes breast cancer research has come from a number of sources including the New Zealand Breast Cancer Research Trust, the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, the Marsden Fund, the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, US Department of Defense, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, the Margaret Morley Medical Trust.