Their goal is to develop new, robust immuohistochemistry tests that predict response to treatments in breast cancer. They are developing antibodies to a novel amplified breast cancer gene product which they discovered and that is amplified and overexpressed in 10 percent of primary breast cancers. This gene encodes an inhibitor of apoptosis and is likely to influence tumor cell response to treatments that act by an apoptotic mechanism. Antibodies to this amplified gene product exhibit tumor-specific staining in tissue sections from amplified tumors. They will direct test whether overexpression of this gene affects response to treatments by in vitro functional tests and begin examination of clinically annotated tumor banks. Antibodies to other novel amplified breast cancer genes will also be developed and tested.
Thesaurus Terms: antitumor antibody, breast neoplasm, immunocytochemistry, immunologic preparation, oncoprotein, technology /technique development biomarker, neoplasm /cancer genetics
