Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology seminar series: Identification of a hominoid-specific protein as an estrogen regulated oncogene and a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer

Tuesday, 1 May 2012
3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Location: At Seminar Room 501-505, Building 501, 85 Park Road, Grafton

Speaker: Dr Dong-Xu Liu, Liggins Institute
Department: Molecular Medicine and Pathology

Due to the heterogeneous nature of breast cancer, current targeted therapies are only effective for a small portion of patients. Thus, there is a continuing need to develop new anti-cancer agents. Identifying novel oncogenic proteins is the first step in the development of novel cancer drugs.

Here we report the identification of a novel estrogen regulated gene SHON (secreted hominoid-specific oncogene. SHON immunoreactivity is observed in more than 60% of breast tumours and is positively correlated with estrogen receptor expression. Therefore, SHON could be a potential therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment.