Komen supports UVA Engineering researchers targeting ‘triple negative’ breast cancer

Through precision medicine, the University of Virginia is working toward a world in which no more pink ribbons are necessary. To that end, Susan G. Komen announced support this summer for the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science’s efforts to apply systems biology research to defeat breast cancer.

Komen announced a collective $10 million in research awards , including a $100,000 grant over two years to support the work of doctoral student Catalina Alvarez Yela, who is studying “triple negative” breast cancer, an aggressive type of invasive breast cancer that is hard to selectively target. 

UVA biomedical engineer Kevin Janes is her mentor on the project.

The pair will be focusing on how genes and proteins interact with each other within organelles. Those are the “little organs” such as mitochondria that reside within cells and perform specialized functions. Specifically, they are studying the regulation of a protein complex that forms its own mini-organelle when cells separate their chromosomes during division.

“Catalina is building computational models of chromosome segregation during cell division and how that process goes wrong in breast cancer,” Janes said. “She is also testing model predictions in mouse experiments in the lab.”

The ASPIRE Grant — an acronym for Supplement to Promote Inclusion for Research Excellence — encourages opportunity for students from diverse backgrounds. Alvarez Yela is a native of Colombia. 

Janes, the John Marshall Money Professor of biomedical engineering, co-directs the Center for Systems Analysis of Stress-Adapted Cancer Organelles, where the research is being performed. The center previously received a $12 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. 

Prior to the center’s founding in 2022, cancer research had largely focused on targeting specific genes or proteins involved with cell division and developing drugs for those targets, rather than taking a more systemic approach. 

Alvarez Yela is co-advised by Todd Stukenberg in the UVA School of Medicine’s Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Group. Her breast cancer advocate is Ivy Hinton in the School of Nursing.

In all, “Komen’s 32 grants further cutting-edge breast cancer research being done at 27 prestigious institutions worldwide and continue Komen’s longstanding support of breast cancer researchers early in their careers, as well as the world’s leaders in the field,” the organization said in a news release.