The clinical necessity of combining molecularly targeted agents to effectively treat cancer is clear. At the molecular level, the limitations of single-target inhibition due to the complexity and redundancy of oncogenic ...

Mammary gland development is a complex process requiring numerous systemic hormones as well as local regulatory factors. Expression of the heparin-binding growth factor, pleiotrophin (PTN) in the mouse mammary gland and ...

Understanding the quality and quantity of resident bone marrow cells as well as circulating bone marrow derived cells (BMDC) are key to unlocking the complexity of their contribution to physiological hemostasis or pathological ...

Ewing’s sarcoma is the second most frequent bone cancer. However, it is still a relatively uncommon cancer, with only approximately 225 new cases diagnosed in patients under 20 years old each year in North America. Despite ...

A metastasizing cancer cell will experience a series of diverse and often lethal selective pressures as it travels from a primary tumor to a distant organ site. Two crucial events in this multistep journey encompass cancer ...

Elucidating the mechanism of DNA damage and mutation is key to understating cancer genesis. In the first section of this thesis we examined base excision repair enzymes (BER) responsible for mitigating damage to DNA. BER ...

Breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer and the most frequent cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide. Immunoreactive assays as well as gene expression profiling of breast cancer have shown a high degree of ...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a devastating cancer, due to both our narrow understanding of its molecular drivers and limited therapeutic strategies. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) limits the chemotherapeutic options for the treatment ...

Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment. Certain immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T cell therapy, provide long lasting remissions. Unfortunately, the majority of tumors are unresponsive ...

Despite the success of antiestrogens in extending overall survival of patients with estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast tumors, resistance to these therapies is prevalent. ER+ tumors that progress on antiestrogens are ...