News from IBC Research Foundation

An Interview with

Diane Palmieri, Ph.D. of the National Cancer Institute

By, Ginny Mason, RN, BSN
Executive Director, ibcRF

Last Fall the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation, in collaboration with the Milburn Foundation, chose Diane Palmieri, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute staff scientist in the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, Womens Cancer Section, to receive grant support for work in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC.) The grant is in support of her proposal "Development of Mouse Models of Inflammatory Breast Cancer Brain Metastasis."

Dr. Palmieri is a dynamic and excellent presenter. Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to hear her speak and present posters at different conferences. She is known for her support and encouragement of advocates and serves as an instructor for Project LEAD. Our thanks to Dr. Palmieri for responding to the following questions for our readers.

Have you always wanted a career in cancer research?
I have always wanted to be a scientist since I was 12 years old. I became interested in cancer research in college after taking cell and molecular biology classes. I was fascinated by learning how cancer cells escape normal growth and regulatory processes to create disease. Truth be told, I was fascinated by the pathogenesis of all disease processes once I had an understanding of normal. In my senior year of college my grandma died of lymphoma, and I think that is what really steered me toward cancer research in graduate school; even though I entered a graduate program in molecular pathology, which had a department full of researchers studying diseases from AIDS to atherosclerosis to various types of cancer.

What got you interested in working on breast cancer?
I don't know that I can really pinpoint something specific. It was a combination of factors I suppose. I have always had strong female role models in my life, particularly my mom, and I wanted to use my education and training to help women in some way. When I started graduate school in the mid-nineties, the breast cancer awareness movement had really gained mainstream attention and there was a push for research in this area. Finally, my graduate advisor who had spent his career studying vascular disease had two sisters that were breast cancer survivors. He wanted to switch his research focus, in part, to breast cancer. So we combined our interests and talents, and I started the first breast cancer research project in his laboratory.

How long have you been working in breast cancer?
I have been doing breast cancer research since starting that project in graduate school, which is about 13 years now.

Tell us a little about your work, prior to the Center of Excellence Award. I began my work in breast cancer studying cell adhesion and motility, so moving on to studying the metastatic process was a natural progression. Before focusing on brain metastasis for the last six years, I worked on the nm23 metastasis suppressor gene. As a class, metastasis suppressor genes are defined as genes that do not affect primary tumor size, but control metastatic spread. Nm23 was the first metastasis suppressor gene discovered and was discovered by Dr. Patricia Steeg. I also worked in the area of early breast cancer, studying proteins involved in the progress on normal cells to DCIS.

Share a bit about the Center of Excellence (COE) Award

work. Our COE involves sixteen co-PI's (principle investigators) and is focused on studying the biology of brain metastasis and identifying and validating new therapeutic targets for this disease. We have undertaken a multi-disciplinary approach to studying the biology that involves basic molecular and cellular biology, blood-brain barrier pharmacology and clinical research to gain new insights into this sanctuary site for metastatic breast cancer cells. To date, we have conducted gene expression profiling to identify differences between primary breast tumors and brain metastases, tested a number of compounds in our mouse models for the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and prevent or treat metastatic disease, and have initiated a clinical study to determine if data generated from the models parallels what occurs in patients.

How does all the above connect to Inflammatory Breast Cancer? Our ongoing work on brain metastasis connects to Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) in two ways. First, the compounds that we have preclinically validated for the prevention and treatment of brain metastasis may be of benefit for IBC patients. This is particularly true for the use of lapatinib (Tykerb) to prevent the development of brain metastasis, as this drug has been shown in the clinic to benefit IBC patients. Second, the assays developed and experience gained from studying brain metastasis of triple negative and Her-2+ breast cancer provides the foundation to now focus on developing IBC specific models of brain metastasis. These models will hopefully lead to the identification of new targets specific to IBC that may not be present in other metastatic breast cancers.