Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York, New York
Assistant Professor, Department of Oncological Sciences
American Association of Cancer Research
Understanding the characteristics of bone niches that promote metastasis.
Metastasis is responsible for virtually all breast cancer-related deaths. While cancer cells can metastasize to various sites, some tissues tend to play an essential role in the process. Bone is the most common site of metastasis in breast cancer. Additionally, there is a high association between multi-organ metastasis and the presence of bone metastases, suggesting that cancer cells first metastasize to bone then can migrate to other organs and form new metastases. In other words, bone metastasis may fuel metastasis expansion. In previous studies, Dr. Bado and colleagues identified a central role of a bone stem cell factor, FGF2, in mediating bone metastasis and sustaining dormant tumor cells (DTCs). Dr. Bado aims to investigate niches in bone that promote survival of DTCs and ultimately lead to therapeutic resistance and metastatic progression.
For his AACR award supported by BCRF, Dr. Bado is characterizing pro-survival niches that are involved in bone metastasis. So far, Dr. Bado has designed and optimized a tool to map high-concentration FGF2 “hotspots” in bone using antibody markers. Once the markers are all validated, they will then assess the impact of breast cancer on FGF2-niches in bone. Dr. Bado is also analyzing markers of FGF Receptors (FGFR) activity, which are involved in cell growth and migration, and found that only FGFR1 signaling was significantly associated with bone metastasis while other FGFR family members were not. Together, these results indicate that FGFRs may activate separate mechanisms from each other depending on their surrounding ecosystem and should be equally considered when establishing therapeutic strategies.
Dr. Bado will next work to evaluate metastasis stages with an emphasis on dormancy. He aims to identify alternative therapeutic strategies to eliminate DTCs likely to form new metastases. Overall, this project will improve our understanding of long-term tumor cell dormancy while informing strategies to prevent recurrence in breast cancer.
Igor Bado, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Bado obtained his PhD at the University of Houston and completed his postdoctoral studies at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Bado works on various mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis and therapeutic resistance. In his recent studies, he helped identify the FGFR/EZH2 axis as a central driver of epigenetic reprogramming in the early stage of bone metastasis. Dr. Bado has received multiple awards and honors and his laboratory is funded by the National Cancer Institute. His research focuses on understanding the interconnection between breast cancer metastases and their microenvironment using a multidisciplinary approach.
2023
The A Cure in Our Lifetime Award
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