The American Cancer Society estimates that over 178,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the U.S. in 2007. Professors BARBARA OSBORNE and JOSEPH JERRY of the Veterinary and Animal Sciences department are adding to the arsenal for the war on breast and various other cancers. They are two of a number of campus researchers working to demystify cancers by analyzing enzymes and genes that could play significant roles in their diagnosis and prognosis.

Barbara Osborne's work is focused on the immune system. A recent $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supports her work on an enzyme called gamma-secretase. In patients with breast cancer and leukemia, the enzyme activates a protein called "Notch." The cell-signaling system to which Notch is important is often activated in cancer patients. Gamma-secretase also activates a protein called amyloid precursor protein, a precursor to proteins that comprises the plaque found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Osborne is using the NIH grant to investigate whether inhibiting gamma- secretase would be a useful supplemental therapy for some of these diseases.

Joe Jerry is forwarding the fight to treat and prevent breast cancer with his identification of genes that appear to modify the actions of mutations in p53, a tumor suppressor gene. The genes also seem to explain why some people with p53 mutations do not develop cancer. His discovery came after his research team found differences in a section of DNA belonging to two groups of mice that had identical mutations in p53, with only one group developing mammary tumors. He isolated one particular gene, DMBT1, as the gene that was missing products or occurred at low levels in the tumor group. As director of the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute's (PVLSI) Breast Cancer Working Group, Jerry's subsequent collaboration with pathologists at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA led to the discovery of low levels of DMBT1 in women with breast cancer. PVLSI is a partnership between UMass Amherst and Baystate Medical Center that aims to improve human health by developing new ways to diagnose and treat disease.

Jerry's findings on DMBT1 can be used for development of drugs for prevention or treatment of breast cancer and are available for licensing and research collaboration.