University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute scientist, Dr. Lalita Shevde-Samant has been awarded a $440,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to continue her research designed to improve the understanding of aggressive breast cancers.

The grant funds Shevde-Samant’s three-year project that seeks to determine why and how breast cancer cells migrate to bone tissue and how they destroy the bone. It also seeks to better understand the role of Hedgehog proteins and osteopontin in the efficiency of aggressive metastasizing breast cancers. By understanding how these molecular events progress would potentially uncover ways to interrupt these pathways to prevent spreading of breast cancer into bone tissue.

The study aims to verify if the Hedgehog families of proteins, commonly associated with embryonic development, are activated by aggressive cancerous cells and aids the spreading of the cancer and deterioration of the bone. The study also focuses on osteopontin, which is normally found in the body but at highly elevated levels when a patient is challenged by breast cancer. Osteopontin is thought to enable abnormal communication between the cancerous tissues and leads to deterioration of bone tissue. Bone tissue is the most frequent location where breast cancer first spreads.

"It is extremely important to better understand the process that allows breast cancer to spread into bone tissue. Hopefully, this understanding will lead to better treatments for women with breast cancer," said Shevde-Samant.

In this project Shevde-Samant will collaborate with Dr. J. Allan Tucker, chair of pathology at USA, Dr. Madhuri Mulekar, professor of mathematics and statistics; and Dr. Donna Lyn Dyess, breast cancer surgeon and professor of surgery at USA.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis among women. It is the second leading cancer-related cause of death in women annually. According to the Alabama Statewide Cancer Registry, deaths associated with breast cancer declined 2.3 percent per year from 1990 to 2001. However, the breast cancer incidence rate among Alabama females increased 4.2 percent between 1996 and 2002. The decline in deaths, in part, is attributable to early identification and treatment.