Dr. Amit K. Tiwari, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, was invited to present at the First Annual Breast Cancer Summit at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio. The purpose of the summit was to improve breast cancer outcomes through early detection, survivorship support and health promotion, and participants included breast cancer survivors, primary health care personnel like nurses, technicians, physicians and pharmacists, and students and community members.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which lacks three key cell surface receptors (ER,PR and HER2), is highly heterogeneous, aggressive, invasive, and metastatic. It recurs more frequently and offers a worse prognosis than other forms of breast cancer. TNBC also presents the highest health disparity, since it is three times more common among African-American women than among Caucasian women. Current chemotherapy, including targeted therapies, has limited value in the treatment of TNBC.
Dr. Tiwari discussed and provided information on current therapy options (taxanes, anthracyclines, PARP, platinums and other combinations) and future individualized therapy options for TNBC.
Angelique Nyinawabera, a graduate student in Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics who is mentored by Dr. Tiwari, also attended the conference. Angelique’s research efforts are dedicated towards bridging the health disparity gap experienced by African-American women. Her dissertation focuses on targeting highly dysregulated mitochondrial genes to develop novel TNBC therapeutics.
