The goal of our lab is to research and develop heat shock protein-based therapies to be used alone or in combination with current therapies for the eradication of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Recent studies on surface receptors and gene expression of breast tumors have come up with a term TNBC, creating a phenotype and disease quite distinct from that seen in HER2- or ER-positive breast cancers, which is a much more aggressive disease without tumor-specific treatment options. Cancer stem cells (CSC) are cancer cells with characteristics associated with normal stem cells; more specifically they possess the ability to give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sample. It is thought that conventional chemotherapies kill differentiated or differentiating cells, which form the bulk of the tumor but are unable to kill new cells.
