January 23, 1995 Contact: Robert Irion (408/459-2495)
ARMY FUNDS BREAST-CANCER RESEARCH PROJECT AT UC SANTA CRUZ
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SANTA CRUZ, CA--In 1992, a citizens' group called the National Breast Cancer Coalition led a fight for more money from the federal government for breast-cancer studies. Congress responded with $210 million, but directed that the funds come from an unusual source: the U.S. Army. Now, despite misgivings about the military's intent, hundreds of scientists have earned grants for new and potentially valuable research.
One of those scientists is Charles Daniel, research professor of biology at UC Santa Cruz. Daniel's lab group will receive nearly $1.1 million over the next four years to pursue basic research on genetic changes in cells that may cause breast cancer. As part of the project, Dominican Santa Cruz Hospital will supply the group with tissue samples from the diseased breasts of women who undergo surgery--tissues that otherwise would be discarded.
"Cancer is probably the most complex and challenging health problem that scientists have grappled with," says Daniel, a founding faculty member at UCSC. "Our research is part of a broad effort to understand the basic processes behind breast cancer. These approaches do not offer an immediate hope for curing cancer, but they may lead to an arsenal of tests that would help identify people at high risk."
The crux of Daniel's project is to explore the roles of special genetic controls, called "homeobox genes," in the growth of both normal and cancerous breasts. Homeobox genes are the master regulators of the fate of a living cell. Studies in fruit flies and mice have shown that these genes dictate basic body patterns in a developing embryo, such as wiring of the nervous system or placement of arms and legs. Errors in homeobox genes can cause changes in the cell that damage or kill the embryo. It appears that homeobox genes control proper tissue growth in adults as well. If the genes somehow go haywire, cancer may result.
Recently, Daniel's lab group was the first to show that homeobox genes are active in breast tissues. The group, led by graduate student Yael Friedmann, studied the mammary glands of mice. They found that certain homeobox genes switch on or off in the glands, in response to changes in the levels of estrogen and other key hormones. Moreover, mice with breast tumors had homeobox genes that may function abnormally. Friedmann and her colleagues reported their findings in November in the journal Cancer Research.
The Army-funded project will expand upon this work. Again using mice, Daniel's team will study which of the dozens of known homeobox genes control breast growth and function at various stages of life. By inducing changes in some of the genes, the team will try to learn whether they can act as cancer-causing triggers. This could happen if the genes go into overdrive or shut down prematurely.
The tissue samples from Dominican Hospital will allow the team to extend its work to human breast cancer. Although cells in people and mice work in similar ways, there probably are some differences in how homeobox genes behave in the two species. The researchers will not preserve the human tissues in a living state. Rather, they will extract genetic material from normal and cancerous cells, then study it using the techniques of molecular biology.
For Daniel, who participated last year in UC's early-retirement program, the Army grant has prolonged his research career. His group recently received another new four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health for a different aspect of research on mammary glands in mice. "We are one of the few labs in the world working at the intersection of homeobox genes and breast cancer," Daniel says. "My goal is to establish a foundation for this kind of research and let others assume the reins in four years."
Daniel emphasizes that his team's work is far removed from creating a new medicine for breast cancer or manipulating the body's genes to prevent it. "The whole medical establishment is based on understanding how things work at a very basic level, and for breast cancer that is not well known," he says. "Learning more about which genes control these processes might help us detect people at risk. That's a big promise--prevention is much more important than a cure when it comes to cancer."
Although applying to the Army for money was not a simple task, Daniel is pleased with the result: one of the largest grants of his long tenure at UCSC. "Women activists pushed this program, and it's encouraging that they got such a positive response," he says. Legislators seem encouraged as well; Congress recently earmarked $115 million in the Army's 1995 budget for a second round of breast-cancer research proposals.
Editor's note: For interviews or more information, contact Charles
Daniel at (408) 459-4171 or
This release is also available on UC NewsWire, the University of
California's electronic news service. To access by modem, dial (209)
244-6971.
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