REVISE: The Jiagge Lab and the Precision Medicine for African Breast Cancer (PMABC) aim to improve patient outcomes by identifying biomarkers for screening and treatment in women with African ancestry with breast cancer and to increase knowledge and access to screening methods in the African American community. Specifically, our research objective is to study the tumor microenvironment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) stem cells in African tumors. TNBC is an aggressive subtype with a tendency to metastasize which accounts for approximately 15% of breast cancers. With a median overall survival of only 13 to 18 months even with standard chemotherapy, women with TNBC have devastating health outcomes.
This initiative will work in collaboration with our breast cancer research partnerships with the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center and with our nine leading health partner institutions in Ghana and Tanzania to comparatively study the biology of TNBC in Caucasion American, African American, and Western African patients. Through this, we have access to patient samples and have an understanding of the demographics. In our previous work, we found a very high stromal expression of stem cell markers in African tumors both benign and malignant. We aim to identify the specific stromal cells (immune, fibroblast, or macrophages) that regulate the initiation and progression of African tumors. We also aim to identify genetic and non-genetic risk factors leading to the high incidence rates of TNBC. We currently have a biorepository of tumors and saliva from patients at these institutions that need to be sequenced to identify potential mutations that can be targeted and have created tumor models such as patient derived xenografts, cell lines, and organoids that will be utilized for drug screening and biomarker identification.