Yi Li, PHD Baylor College of Medicine Idea Award:

My research is to study what subset of cells in the breast that are most susceptible to angiogene attack and subsequently become cancer. We developed a unique mouse model that allows us to closely mimic what happens in humans at the very first step of cancer initiation. The traditional way is to build genetically engineered mice to study how a cell might be induced to become cancer. However, the traditional way doesn't allow us to go into specific subset of cells in the breast so we have no idea what cells are most vulnerable to angiogenic attack. Using the system we built we can now go into different subsets of cells and ask which one is most susceptible to angiogene-induced transformation. This award is extremely important to my research program because the matter we used is highly unconventional. It was not used in any other research. We developed this method. It's not a conventional method. It's not typically funded by NIH research. However, DoD was willing to take this risk and we are very lucky to be able to use this method to study the very first step of breast cancer initiation. Showing this poster here, in fact, we have discovered some unique aspects of how breast cancer initiates in the breast. Now the next step is to discover critical survival pathways in first in stem cells. Those cells appear to be most vulnerable to angiogenic attack. Once we know the critical survival pathways in these cells it is possible then for pharmaceutical companies and research institutes to develop agents to target the critical pathways we might be able to identify. This method is really unconventional. It allows us to closely mimic human breast cancer initiation in which we introduce angiogene in only a few cells then we can watch those few cells to see whether they will go on and become a cancer. This is what happens in humans where a few mutated cells will eventually become a cancer in a field of completely normal cells. I think breast cancer research is real exciting. It's probably the most advance cancer research field. We also have a fantastic support group; the patient group, the so-called consumer group. They are closely involved. We're able to hear the patients' perspective so that I can be mindful of what my research program is for and it is very gratifying to get to know these people. This award is fantastic because it allows us to recruit the brightest trainees to this program which otherwise they may not enter this research program. This funding is really terrific because it encourages young people to come into breast cancer research to fight together with us against this terrible disease.