Mohd Nasser
University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE·Medicine & Clinical Research
When breast cancer spreads to the brain, survival drops sharply, and doctors currently have no reliable way to tell in advance which patients are headed that way. Brain and central nervous system metastases are especially common in two breast cancer subtypes: triple receptor-negative tumors, which lack the three receptors that targeted drugs usually exploit, and ErbB2-positive tumors, which overproduce a growth-signal receptor.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biochemistry
Pharmacology
- Topics
breast cancer
brain metastasis
central nervous system metastasis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Establish whether MUC5AC, a secreted gel-forming mucin, works as a predictive biomarker for brain metastasis by testing if high levels in primary breast tumors forecast later brain spread and correlate with therapy response, survival and relapse.
- Define how MUC5AC drives brain metastasis through the cMET/CD44v6/NF-kB signaling axis, using preclinical mouse models of brain-tropic triple-negative and ErbB2-positive breast cancer.
- Test a brain-penetrable, phase 1-tested cMET inhibitor alone or combined with cisplatin or neratinib as a therapy against brain-metastatic triple-negative and ErbB2-positive breast cancer.
- Determine how MUC5AC loss affects tumor cell motility, adhesion and transmigration across the blood-brain barrier, comparing knockdown and control brain-tropic cell lines and an intracardiac injection mouse model.
More about the research
This project asks whether a sticky secreted protein called MUC5AC, one of the gel-forming mucins that normally lubricate and protect body surfaces, is both an early warning sign and an active driver of that spread.
Why it matters
Brain metastases affect a large share of patients with triple-negative or ErbB2-positive breast cancer and carry very high mortality, with no curative option. If MUC5AC levels in tumor tissue or blood reliably flag patients at risk, they could enable earlier detection and closer monitoring; and blocking the cMET/MUC5AC axis, including with a brain-penetrant cMET inhibitor already tested in humans, could offer a treatment or prevention strategy for this group.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Srinivas Malladi
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how TEAD, a gene-switching transcription factor, drives AXL expression and brain metastasis in dormant, therapy-resistant HER2-positive breast cancer cells, using the lab's brain metastasis models.
Jonathan Coloff
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Biochemistry
Determine whether luminal breast tumors, which cannot make the amino acid serine, shrink or stop growing when mice are fed a serine-free diet.
Sabine Brouxhon
University of Rochester, NY·Pharmacology
Characterize how soluble E-cadherin (sEcad) binds and activates the IGF-1R growth receptor, using purified IGF-1R holoreceptor and biochemical and biophysical binding and phosphorylation measurements, including synergy with the natural ligands IGF-1 and EGF.
The school
University of Nebraska Medical Center: 20 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 82 research doctorates a year.
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