Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Associate Professor Cancer Center Member
Leveraging pregnancy-associated changes in breast tissue to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer.
A full-term pregnancy in women younger than age 25 is correlated with an approximately 30 percent decrease in the incidence of breast cancer. Pregnancy-associated protection from breast cancer persists for a lifetime, implying a permanent shift in the cells that comprise the mammary gland. Dr. dos Santos’ earlier work showed that pregnancy-induced molecular changes acquired by mammary epithelial cells enhance immune communication and inhibit mammary tumorigenesis. Dr. dos Santos is now exploring the possibility of blocking mammary oncogenesis by manipulating the mammary immune microenvironment in a pregnancy-like manner. Ultimately, this work could inform the development of therapeutic strategies to mimic the protective effects of pregnancy for breast cancer prevention.
Dr. dos Santos has found that the post-pregnancy mammary tissue has increased numbers of specific subtypes of immune cells called natural killer T (NKT) cells. Probiotics have an established role of stimulating NKT immunity. Dr. dos Santos and her team found that milk supplemented with a mix of probiotics was beneficial in a breast cancer model, suggesting that probiotics may help boost immunity and prevent cancer in a way that is similar to pregnancy. Additionally, they identified certain immune cells and antibodies that are more common in breast tissue after being pregnant. These cells seem to help the body recognize and fight early signs of cancer. Based on these findings, Dr. dos Santos is developing new cancer prevention strategies that mimic the immune benefits of pregnancy.
Next, Dr. dos Santos and her team will utilize their dietary probiotic formula to assess whether it can be used to mitigate mammary tumorigenesis in several breast cancer model systems. The team will continue to evaluate the effects of post-pregnancy immune cells and antibodies on inhibiting mammary tumorigenesis across breast cancer models as well as identify other antibodies to drive immune activation and prevent tumor development.
Camila dos Santos, PhD is an Associate Professor and Member of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center. She earned her doctorate in molecular and cell biology from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil. Dr. dos Santos then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Gregory Hannon’s group at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to study normal and cancerous breast stem cells. Dr. dos Santos serves as the Faculty Head, Organoid Shared Resource and as the Deputy Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center. Her laboratory focuses on investigating the molecular and cellular alterations induced by pregnancy that influence breast tumor growth. For her research in normal breast development and breast cancer, she has been granted a series of prestigious awards, including the Rita Allen Foundation Award (2016), the V-Foundation for Cancer Research Award (2016), the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Award (2018), the AACR-Breast Cancer Research Foundation Young Investigator Award (2018), and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Faculty Award (2021).
2023
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