Tan A. Ince, MD, PhD
Visiting Clinical Scientist, Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, MA
Associate Pathologist, Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA

Over the past year, Dr. Ince developed a chemically-defined cell culture medium that allowed his team to directly compare genetically identical tumors that were experimentally created from various distinct normal cell types in the human breast. This experiment revealed that tumor cell behavior is strongly influenced by the nature of the normal cell type that serves as the precursor of the tumor cells. Hence, the researchers predict that a comprehensive analysis of various normal cell types in human breast will be important and instructive for understanding the nature of the tumors that arise from these cells. They will continue this research over the coming year and will use BCRF funding to identify the epigenetic changes that are specific to breast tumor stem cells, and examine the contribution of heat shock proteins to breast tumor phenotype.