(3 year grant, awarded to Christina Curtis, PhD, assistant professor at Stanford University, 2016)
- Using an unprecedented triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) tissue cohort composed of primary TNBCs and their paired metastases, her unique project seeks to identify the earliest drivers of metastasis. Cleverly coined the “Big Bang model”, Curtis is focused on uncovering the key indicators that define whether a tumor will become metastatic. She will take a novel approach to this problem, combining genomics and systems biology, to understand the evolution of TNBC from primary to metastatic tumor. Results from this study have the exciting potential to advance diagnosis and treatment of metastatic TNBC.