Investigating wound healing in the breast as a new breast cancer preventive therapy

Co-funded by the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) and the Mother’s Day Classic Foundation (MDC)

The challenge:

Breast cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia for all genders. Its incidence is steadily increasing with over 20,000 new cases diagnosed in Australia each year.

Current options to prevent breast cancer are limited.

Project description:

Pregnancy is known to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer.

Previous research by Associate Professor Kara Britt and the team found higher levels of a protein involved in wound healing in the breast tissue of people who had given birth. In addition, they found that having lower levels of this protein was linked to poorer outcomes in people with breast cancer.

Although the protein is well known for its role in controlling processes involved in wound healing in the body, it does not have any known roles in the breast or in breast cancer development. As tumours have often been referred to as wounds that never heal, regulating levels of this protein in the body could act as a preventative therapy for women at increased risk of breast cancer.

In this NBCF-funded study, Associate Professor Britt and her team will collect tissue samples from normal breast, and early stage and invasive breast cancers from women having breast surgery to assess how this protein is working. Drugs that currently impact levels of this protein are already used safely in people for blood disorders. Hence, breast cancer laboratory models will be used to evaluate if this drug or related drugs have the potential to be repurposed as a precision therapy or preventative treatment for breast cancer.

Potential impact:

Results from the study will enhance our understanding of wound healing’s role in normal breast tissue function and if we can control it to provide a protective effect against breast cancer development.

Ultimately, this research’s preventative approach could potentially lead to a cost-effective strategy that could reduce breast cancer incidence and improve outcomes.

Grant code: 2025/RPGS0097
Active years: 2025-2029
Scientific project title: Fine tuning tissue repair for breast cancer therapy