According to American Cancer Society Statistics nearly 1:10 women will develop breast cancer. Of these women many will develop skeletal metastases. Once tumor have established in bone they cause complications such as fractures, bone pain, and hypercalcemia.

We use animal models to determine the molecular mechanisms regulating breast cancer metastasis to bone.  This will help determine pathways for which  therapeutics agents can target for treatment of patients with bone metastasis.

Our Projects:

Molecular Regulation of Breast Cancer Metastasis to Bone
Small Animal Imaging of Tumor Metastasis
Testing Efficacy of Blocking Antibody Against TGFβ Ligands in Breast Cancer Preclinical Models

Personnel:

Gregory R. Mundy, M.D.: Bone Center Director
Swati Biswas, PhD: Research Assistant Professor.  Department of Cancer Biology
Julie A. Sterling, Ph.D.: Postdoctoral Fellow
Clayton Wilburn: Research Assistant I. Department of Medicine
Steve Munoz: Research Assistant I. Department of Medicine
Rachelle Johnson: Graduate Student. Department of Cancer Biology
Nazanin Ruppender: Graduate Student. Department of Chemical Engineering

The VUMC Center for Bone Biology is a member of the VUMC Department of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology.