NIH R01 · 2024
Abstract. Breast cancer rates in American women of African ancestry (AA) continue to rise and the gap in mortality between AAs and women of European ancestry (EA) persists, the reasons for which are largely unknown. Investigating the hypothesis that evolutionary adaptation to endemic infectious diseases in Africa, such as malaria, resulted in more robust immune responses, but potentially more aggressive breast cancers with poorer prognoses, we found striking ancestral differences in distributions of SNPs in immune pathways, and in circulating cytokines and systemic immune response. Extending our research to local immune response in the tumor microenvironment (TME), we found a stronger…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.