USA College of Medicine faculty receive funding from Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama

Natalie Gassman, Ph.D.

Faculty members at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine have received funding for three research projects related to breast cancer. The funding was part of $1.05 million given to several Alabama organizations by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama, based in Birmingham.

Recipients included Natalie Gassman, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology; Michele Schuler, Ph.D., associate professor of comparative biology; Casey L. Daniel, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of family medicine; and Gary Piazza, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology.

Michele Schuler, Ph.D.

Gassman, who conducts research at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute, and Schuler were named the 2019 BCRFA Innovation Award Winners. Their project, “Blockage of CHK1 and EGFR Signaling in Triple Negative Breast Cancer to Enhance Anti-Tumor Efficacy,” focuses on how the lack of hormone and growth factor receptors in triple negative breast cancer makes DNA damaging chemotherapies a first-line treatment. Cardiotoxicity is a significant problem for these therapies.

Gassman and Schuler will test a novel combination of chemical inhibitors that are only modestly effective on their own but have the potential in combination to trigger death in triple negative cancer cells without cardiac side effects.

Casey Daniel, Ph.D.

Daniel, a member of the Division of Cancer Control and Prevention at the Mitchell Cancer Institute, and Gabrielle Roque, M.D., of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, received a second year of support for a collaborative research project, “Quantifying Breast Cancer Patient Preferences and their Association with Financial Toxicity during Treatment Decision-Making.”

Daniel and Roque plan to quantify the trade-offs that breast cancer patients make during treatment decisions, with a focus on problems related to the cost of medical care. Their central hypothesis is that increased understanding of patient preferences, particularly those associated with medical care costs, through the evaluation of trade-offs, will optimize shared decision-making.

Gary Piazza, Ph.D.

Quantification of breast cancer patient preferences will create opportunities for patient participation in decision-making, aid clinicians in understanding patient perspective during treatment decision-making, and ultimately achieve patient-centered, higher value healthcare for women living with breast cancer.

Piazza, who conducts research at the Mitchell Cancer Institute, and Clint Grubbs, Ph.D., of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, received support for the collaborative research project, “A Novel Wnt/β-catenin Inhibitor for Breast Cancer Therapy.” The research is based on results from a two-year project funded in 2017 by the BCRFA. The most recent funding  will support research to evaluate the activity of an experimental anti-cancer drug developed at MCI in animal models of metastatic breast cancer in combination with a standard-of-care drug, doxorubicin.

Other organizations receiving funds are the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, Southern Research and CerFlux in Birmingham.

The current donation brings the total to almost $10 million given for breast cancer research by BCRFA since 1996.