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Orlandric Miree, Ph.D., is a 2020 graduate of the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program. |
A research paper on the topic was published this summer in Scientific Reports, an international journal.
“We sought to address the lack of useful and reliable biomarkers for ovarian cancer,” said Miree. “The lack of biomarkers is a major barrier in early diagnosis of ovarian cancer and its treatment planning that contributes to the poor survival of patients.”
Ovarian cancer is the second most common cancer found in the reproductive system for American women, and has the highest death rate.
At USA, Miree led multidisciplinary efforts to research MYB gene expression in normal and ovarian cancer tissues. The goal was to find if there was any correlation between MYB levels and the development of ovarian tumors and if African American women and Caucasian women have differing MYB levels that could contribute to the differences in ovarian cancer survival rates.
The research findings showed that higher MYB levels were present in ovarian cancer tissues with aggressive histological subtype. Miree and his colleagues also observed that higher MYB levels in African American women correlated with worsened outcomes. Despite being diagnosed at a lower rate than Caucasian women, African American women have a significantly lower survival rate after diagnosis. During the past five years, the survival rate for Caucasian women with ovarian cancer has increased, while the opposite has occurred with African American women.
“Our study strongly suggests the potential clinical utility of MYB as a diagnostic biomarker for early detection of ovarian cancer,” said Miree. “MYB-targeted therapeutic strategies could also be developed to improve clinical management, especially in African American women, who more often have grim outcomes with this disease.”
Miree was mentored by Ajay Singh, Ph.D., a professor of pathology, and Rodney Rocconi, M.D., a professor of gynecologic oncology at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute. James Elliot Carter, M.D., a board-certified pathologist and a professor of pathology, and Fnu Sameeta, M.D., a fourth year pathology resident, assisted in the pathologic assessment of tumor sections. The study was supported by a diversity supplement funding from the National Cancer Institute to Singh.
Miree worked on this research while he was a graduate student in the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program at the USA College of Medicine. After graduating, he recently took a position as a regulatory scientist with Cardinal Health.
