Factors needed for breast cancer metastasis identified

Published on Tuesday, July 27, 2021

By: Cynthia Wall

Dr. Marcus Zachariah, a member of the CCRI Interdisciplinary Brain and CNS care team and a researcher, is co-lead author of a landmark study on breast cancer brain metastasis, “HIF1A signaling selectively supports proliferation of breast cancer in the brain” recently published in the Nature Communications journal.

Zachariah, a neurosurgeon, and his colleagues identified changes in metabolism critical for growth of breast cancer cells in the brain during metastasis.

Notably, interfering with these metabolic alterations inhibited brain-specific cancer cell growth. This research sheds light on factors important for brain metastasis and opens the door to investigation of new drugs to target brain metastasis.