Daniele M. Gilkes: Developing Technologies to Decipher the Role of Hypoxia in Breast Cancer Metastasis

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Daniele M. Gilkes, an assistant professor in the Oncology Department, under the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Program, at Johns Hopkins, will give a talk titled "Developing Technologies to Decipher the Role of Hypoxia in Breast Cancer Metastasis" for the InHealth Precision Medicine Society.

Gilkes has had her own lab since August 2015, and her research has focused on the role of hypoxic microenvironments in regulating the extracellular matrix in breast cancer. Recently, her research group discovered that tumor cells exposed to low-oxygen conditions have an advantage when it comes to invading and surviving in the bloodstream. The experiments mapping the "fate" of the cells in tissue systems and in live animals illustrated that cells from a primary cancer exposed to hypoxia have a four-times greater likelihood of becoming viable circulating tumor cells—and likely spreading to distant tissues—than those under normal oxygen conditions. Gilkes and her team also identified a pattern of genetic expression in post-hypoxic cells that appears to help the cells survive oxidative stress when they enter the bloodstream. Learn more about the findings on a recent article featured on Nature Communications.