Galileo's Science Cafe with Amanda Haymond Still

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Title: A two-pronged approach for triple negative breast cancer: building new kinds of drugs for the next generation of breast cancer targets 

Presented by Amanda Haymond Still 

Description of talk:  Despite incredible progress in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, we know that about 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in her lifetime, and about 1 in 39 will die from this disease. These statistics, while sobering themselves, can mask the significant differences in incidence and outcomes between different types of breast cancer. Some types of breast cancer have a similar disease burden across different ethnic groups and can be treated very successfully. Others, like triple negative breast cancer, have significantly fewer treatment options. Moreover, incidence of triple negative breast cancer is about twice as high among Black women as among white women in the United States. To address these disparities, Dr. Haymond Still, an early career researcher at GMU, will share how her group is investigating new ways to treat this difficult disease. She will share about her two-pronged approach that focuses on both new targets in the patient immune system as well as building new kinds of drugs that may be cheaper and less toxic for patients. By combining these two approaches, she hopes to not only improve outcomes for women with triple negative breast cancer, but also to improve access to novel treatments.  

Haymond Still is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Systems Biology, and part of the new two-woman team running Mason’s ASSIP program, which provides hands-on research opportunities for high school aspiring scientists every summer. Join us after the talk for an expanded Q&A with not only, Haymond Still, but a few additional cancer scientists as well as ASSIP alumni who can speak to ongoing research in lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and more happening here at Mason.