Deepali Sachdev, PhD

Funded by 2021 Kay Yow Cancer Fund Final Four Research Award

Black Americans (BA) with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) have more aggressive disease and worse outcomes compared to Caucasian Americans. The goal of this project is to test if a novel immunotherapy will be effective in treating triple negative breast cancer in BA using preclinical models. We have generated two immunotherapy drugs that use a type of immune cells in the body called natural killer (NK) cells. NK cells normally function to kill cells and fight viral infections in our body. The drugs we have made train NK cells to recognize and find cancer cells that have two markers that are present on cancer cells from BA patients with TNBC. Once the NK cells find these cancer cells, they will eliminate them. We will test if these drugs kill cancer cells in models that are developed from BA patients with TNBC. The results of this proposal may show that NK-cell-based therapy could provide a new treatment option for BA TNBC patients and reduce their mortality from this disease.