Research to fight cancer relapse continues at UMMC

By: Rachel Browning, Business Development Manager-Neurosurgery

A research study that lasted close to four years and started at Harvard University will take its next steps here at the University of Mississippi Medical Center with original researcher, Dr. Marcus Zachariah. As the advances in medicine continue to succeed, patients with cancer continue to live longer, but cancer relapse becomes a serious threat. Research shows that brain metastases occur in one out of three women with advanced breast cancer. In the lab of Dr. Daniel Haber, along with Dr. Richard Ebright, Dr. Zachariah co-led a study to determine a way to decrease the spread of breast cancer cells to the brain. This study shows why the spread of cancer might occur, and tests a theory on how to slow the progression of circulating tumor cells to the brain.

Read the results in the fully published article in Nature Communications, an open access research journal.