Professor Luca Magnani - The Institute of Cancer Research

Professor Luca Magnani

Dormancy’s Dice: The Long Game of ER+ Breast Cancer

Oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer has two unique problems: (i) it has the highest incidence among all cancers and (ii) it carries the ability to relapse at unpredictable times well after the patient is considered cured. We hypothesise that the presence of dormant cells before transformation and during treatment might be linked to these problems. My group has uncovered evidence that the formation of dormant cell subpopulations, which can occur within the main population of normal ER+ mammary epithelial cells at menopause and malignant ER+ breast and disseminated cells during treatment, involves epigenetic changes.