Sara Courtneidge

Spotlight on disease: breast cancer

by Bruce Lieberman on October 29, 2012 at 5:07 am | 0 Comments

Breast tumor (blue) surrounded by blood vessels (red) [Image provided by Dr. William Stallcup]

What is breast cancer?

Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women. In 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available), 202,964 women in the U.S. were diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,598 women died from the disease, according to the CDC. Approximately 12 percent of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives.

The most common types of breast cancer include ductal carcinoma, which begins in the cells that line the milk ducts of the breast, and lobular ductal carcinoma, which originates in the breast lobes.

A variety of genetic and environmental influences can increase a person’s risk of breast cancer. However, some breast cancers are associated with inherited mutations in a few specific genes. The best known are mutations in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA stands for breast cancer susceptibility gene), which account for five to 10 percent of all breast cancer cases.

Depending on the type of breast cancer and its progression, treatments can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, or targeted therapy aimed specifically at disrupting the molecular underpinnings of the disease.

Breast cancer research at Sanford-Burnham

Sanford-Burnham is home to one of just seven National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated basic cancer centers in the United States. Researchers in this center aim to preempt cancer before it develops, detect the disease at its earliest point, and eliminate its spread.

Historically, our scientists have made seminal contributions to breast cancer. Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D., now director of Sanford-Burnham’s Cancer Center, and others published early findings on cellular communication networks in breast cancer cells. John C. Reed, M.D., Ph.D., now Sanford-Burnham’s CEO, and his laboratory made seminal contributions to the understanding of how certain proteins direct programmed cell death (a process called apoptosis) in breast cancer cells and how these proteins allow breast tumors to resist chemotherapy.

While many researchers in Sanford-Burnham’s Cancer Center study cellular growth and lifespan—work that impacts almost every type of cancer—our scientists are also pursuing several strategies for finding new treatments that specifically target breast cancer.

Here are a few current breast cancer studies at Sanford-Burnham:

Sanford-Burnham cancer researchers speak out about Prop 29

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on May 23, 2012 at 3:35 pm | 0 Comments

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Kristiina Vuori (left) and Sara Courtneidge

A story by KPBS, San Diego’s public radio station, explains how passage of Proposition 29, the California Cancer Research Act, would benefit a number of life science research institutions. The piece features Sanford-Burnham’s Sara Courtneidge, Ph.D. and Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D. First, Courtneidge gives listeners a glimpse of cancer research at Sanford-Burnham and explains how lack of funding is holding back potentially life-saving ideas:

For more than seven years, Courtneidge has been studying how cancer cells invade tissues.

“Both in the primary tumor that people get, but also in the spread of the cancer around the body, which is the thing that most people will die of, the metastases that they have,” Courtneidge said. “And so we’re very interested in defining the mechanisms by which cancer cells move, and invade. And then also thinking about ways that we could come up with new therapeutics that would target that specific mechanism.”

Courtneidge said it takes years of false starts and multiple clinical trials to get even one potential cancer drug to market.

And that requires a lot of money.

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Drug discovery case study: invadopodia and cancer metastasis

by Patrick Bartosch on April 9, 2012 at 11:21 am | 0 Comments

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Metastatic cancer cells form invadopodia, shown here as bright red spots. (Image by Begoña Díaz)

Editor’s note: this is the first in a series of posts highlighting drug screening studies in our Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. Read the second post here.

To metastasize, some types of cancer cells rely on invadopodia, cellular membrane projections that help them “walk” away from the primary tumor. To determine how cells control invadopodia formation, scientists at Sanford-Burnham took advantage of the technology and expertise of the Institute’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics to screen a collection of pharmacologically active compounds to identify those that either promote or inhibit the process.

The study identified several compounds that block invadopodia and found that many of the compounds targeted Cdks, a family of enzymes that were not previously associated with invadopodia. One of these enzymes, Cdk5, is required for the formation and function of invadopodia and for cellular invasion.

Biochemical Journal Symposium: cell signaling & more

by Bruce Lieberman on April 3, 2012 at 12:44 pm | 0 Comments

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Sharon Schendel, Ph.D., former postdoctoral researcher at Sanford-Burnham and head of the Biochemical Journal's U.S. editorial office

How cells traffic nutrients and wage immune responses, how they repair themselves and self-destruct to save their neighbors, how they guard against disease and proliferate in the developing organism – it all comes down to a complex network of biochemical signals and how they’re regulated from moment to moment and cell to cell. Understanding the intricate genetic and chemical pathways inside a cell can help biologists and medical professionals better understand how to pinpoint where signaling has gone haywire, diagnose the onset of disease early, and develop and administer targeted therapeutic drugs.

Cell signaling and regulation was the topic of a symposium on March 22 at Sanford-Burnham’s La Jolla campus, where the sponsor of the meeting, the Biochemical Journal, a publication of the British Biochemical Society, has had its U.S. editorial offices since 2001. Discussions at the symposium, which focused on cell signaling and regulation as it relates to cancer, featured talks from eight Biochemical Journal editorial board members, as well as researchers John Reed and Sara Courtneidge from Sanford-Burnham, and Tony Hunter from the nearby Salk Institute

Meet a cancer researcher: Christine Gould

by Kristina Meek on March 9, 2012 at 9:33 am | 0 Comments

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Meet Christine Gould, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-designated Cancer Center.

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Sanford-Burnham & the Biochemical Journal

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on February 28, 2012 at 2:14 pm | 0 Comments

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Since 2001, Sanford-Burnham has been home to the U.S. editorial office of the Biochemical Journal, a publication of the Biochemical Society. Guy Salvesen, Ph.D., professor and director of the Apoptosis & Cell Death Program in Sanford-Burnham’s National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center, is a vice chair on the journal’s editorial board.

In gratitude to Sanford-Burnham, the Biochemical Journal is sponsoring a special one-day symposium in March, with Dr. Salvesen as host.

What: Cell Signaling and Regulation symposium
Where: Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif., Building 12 (map)
When: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. PT

Click here to register for free

Normal in development, abnormal in cancer

by Bruce Lieberman on August 19, 2011 at 5:16 am | 0 Comments

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Dr. Danielle Murphy (right)

It’s an amazing and frightening thought: some of the same genetic signaling that shapes the development of an embryo also drives the spread of cancer. But that’s what a new study by Dr. Sara Courtneidge’s lab suggests.

Dr. Courtneidge’s lab primarily studies cancer metastasis—the spread of cancer from a tumor to another part of the body. Cancer cells do this by moving from the tumor through the vasculature and into the extracellular matrix, which provides structural support for tissues and organs. A few years ago, Dr. Courtneidge’s lab showed that cancer cells rely on a protein called Tks5 to form invadopodia, structures on the surface of cells that enable cancer cells to “walk” from one place in the body to another.

Cell migration, of course, is not a process unique to cancer and occurs during other normal and disease states. For example, cells move to the site of a wound during healing, during angiogenesis when new blood vessels form in response to injury, and during an immune response to infection. Cell migration is also crucial during embryonic development. So the Courtneidge lab decided to unravel Tks5’s role in development using the tiny zebrafish as an experimental model.

Searching for new cancer drugs: Part 2

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on July 27, 2011 at 9:26 am | 0 Comments

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Scientists in Sanford-Burnham's Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics use robotic arms like this one to search for compounds that alter cellular behavior—precursors to new medicines.

Yesterday, we introduced a study in which scientists in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-Designated Cancer Center and Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics were looking for compounds that regulate invadopodia, cellular projections that allow cancer cells to invade and metastasize. They used robotic technology and automated microscopy to screen a library of pharmacologically active compounds—compounds already known to influence cellular function. In the course of the study, the researchers found some compounds that inhibit invadopodia and some that promote their formation. One of the latter was paclitaxel. Paclitaxel, also known by the brand name Taxol, is an FDA-approved drug currently used to treat several different kinds of cancer. The drug’s anti-tumor activity is based on its ability to bind and stabilize microtubules, one component of the cellular cytoskeleton, thereby halting cell division and inducing cellular suicide (a good thing, for cancer).

Searching for new cancer drugs: part 1

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on July 26, 2011 at 3:10 pm | 1 comment

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Metastatic cancer cells form invadopodia, shown here as bright red spots. (Image by Begoña Díaz)

Metastasis—the spread of cancer from the place where it first started to another place in the body—is the most common reason that cancer treatments fail. To metastasize, some types of cancer cells rely on invadopodia, cellular membrane projections that act like feet, helping them “walk” away from the primary tumor and invade surrounding tissues. To determine how cells control invadopodia formation, Sanford-Burnham scientists screened a collection of pharmacologically active compounds to identify those that either promote or inhibit the process. They turned up several invadopodia inhibitors that target a family of enzymes called cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks), revealing a previously unrecognized role for Cdks in invadopodia formation. These findings appeared online July 26 in Science Signaling.

“Previous studies by our group and others have demonstrated that we might be able to target invadopodia to prevent cancer cell invasiveness,” says Dr. Sara Courtneidge, professor and director of the Tumor Microenvironment Program in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-Designated Cancer Center and senior author of the study. “In this study, we established a cell-based screening assay to help us identify regulators of invadopodia formation.”

Dr. Courtneidge’s group has been studying invadopodia for a number of years with the goal of unraveling how they regulate tumor cell invasion. Here, her team, led by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Manuela Quintavalle, joined forces with scientists in Sanford-Burnham’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics (Prebys Center). This collaboration provided the Courtneidge lab with extra expertise in chemical genomics, the robotic technology necessary to rapidly and reproducibly screen more than 1,000 compounds with known pharmacological activity in cell-based assays, and automated microscopy capable of detecting and measuring invadopodia formation.

Leaders among peers

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on April 29, 2011 at 9:32 am | 0 Comments

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Sanford-Burnham scientists are leading several exciting symposia over the next few months. Please follow the links below for more event and registration information.

2011 Signaling, Metabolism and Hypoxia Symposium
Chaired by Dr. Ze’ev Ronai
May 6, 2011, 2:00 – 5:30 p.m. (PDT)
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute
10901 North Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, California

2011 Glycobiology Gordon Research Conference
Chaired by Dr. Hudson Freeze
May 8 – 13, 2011
Il Ciocco Hotel
Lucca (Barga), Italy

Sanford-Burnham’s 33rd Annual Symposium: Structural Systems Biology
Chaired by members of the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program
Drs. Adam Godzik, Dorit Hanein, Andrei Osterman, Niels Volkmann
June 7, 2011, 9:00 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. (PDT)
Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines
La Jolla, California

Cardiomyocyte Regeneration and Protection
Chaired by Dr. Mark Mercola
Sponsored by Abcam
June 20 – 21, 2011
Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines
La Jolla, California

2011 Molecular Therapeutics of Cancer Research Conference
Chaired by Dr. Sara Courtneidge
Sponsored by the Cancer Molecular Therapeutics Research Association
July 10 – 14, 2011
Asilomar Conference Center
Pacific Grove, California

Seventh General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society
Chaired by Dr. Guy Salvesen and Dr. Matthew Bogyo
October 16 – 20, 2011
Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa
San Diego, California

Seeing is believing

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on April 6, 2011 at 10:01 am | 1 comment

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Left: traditional electron microscopy view of actin filaments. Right: Dr. Dorit Hanein's 3-D view of actin.

Left: electron microscopy view of actin. Right: Dr. Dorit Hanein's 3-D view.

Life is complicated. Even one tiny cell has a lot going on at any given time, even when things are running smoothly. Normal cellular functions and their emergency responses (like to injury or infection) are mostly carried out by proteins. Proteins tell other proteins what to do by carrying signals, tagging one another with chemical groups, chewing up other proteins or helping assemble new ones, and so on. They also help orchestrate which genes are turned on or off and when.

The cell itself is constantly sensing and reacting to constant environmental fluctuations, as are the individual proteins and other molecules. So how do you connect these two things?

“You can see a cell by eye, using a standard microscope. But you can’t see individual molecules that way,” explains Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Dorit Hanein. “A cell is on the micrometer scale (one-thousandth of a millimeter), while an individual molecule is on the nanometer scale (one-millionth of a millimeter). That’s like the difference between walking the 500 miles from here [San Diego] to San Francisco, versus walking from here to the moon.”

What Dr. Hanein and other scientists need are techniques that allow them to look not just at the moon, but at the earth, the moon and everything in between.

Battling metastasis

by Josh Baxt on August 30, 2010 at 3:26 pm | 0 Comments

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Metastasis is a word no one wants to hear. Cells that should never leave their biological home migrate to distant parts of the body. Many things have to go wrong with cellular checks and balances for this to happen, yet it happens all too frequently.

To metastasize, cells must acquire a number of properties, including the abilities to move, survive in the bloodstream, cross tissue boundaries and grow in foreign organs. These last two properties require the activity of proteases, enzymatic proteins that break down other proteins. Dr. Sara Courtneidge, director of Sanford-Burnham’s Tumor Microenvironment Program, studies how the activity of these proteases is controlled by cell surface structures called invadopodia. These finger-like projections from the cell membrane are found in metastatic cancer cells but not in non-invasive cells. Dr. Courtneidge’s laboratory discovered a protein, called Tks5, which controls the formation of these invadopodia in cancer cells.

A Coming Together of Cancer Centers

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on August 4, 2010 at 9:35 am | 0 Comments

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A group of top researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) gathered with their Sanford-Burnham counterparts in La Jolla last week to seek ways the two Cancer Centers could collaborate to translate basic research into new medicines.

‘Must Read’ science

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on May 25, 2010 at 3:29 pm | 0 Comments

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A recent Courtneidge laboratory paper published in The Journal of Cell Biology was selected as a “Must Read” by the Faculty of 1000 (F1000), a prestigious group of scientists who were selected by their peers to represent their respective research fields. F1000 Faculty Members (now actually numbering at more than 2,300 scientists) review, rank and recommend published papers to give other scientists the inside scoop on what they feel are the most important papers in a given field.The paper, co-authored by Dr. Sara Courtneidge and postdoctoral scientist Dr. Manuela Quintavalle, was selected by F1000 Faculty Member Dr. Irina Kaverina, Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Spotlight on disease: breast cancer

What is breast cancer?

Breast cancer research at Sanford-Burnham

Read More

Sanford-Burnham cancer researchers speak out about Prop 29

Drug discovery case study: invadopodia and cancer metastasis

Biochemical Journal Symposium: cell signaling & more

Meet a cancer researcher: Christine Gould

Sanford-Burnham & the Biochemical Journal

Normal in development, abnormal in cancer

Searching for new cancer drugs: Part 2

Searching for new cancer drugs: part 1

Leaders among peers

Seeing is believing

Battling metastasis

A Coming Together of Cancer Centers

‘Must Read’ science

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