Thanh U. Barbie, MD, has been awarded a five-year $2M R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health for the study, “Optimizing therapeutic STING agonism in triple negative breast cancer.”
Preliminary research has identified STING (stimulator of interferon genes) agonists as a potential therapy for triple negative breast cancer, which is a highly aggressive disease that results in a disproportionate number of metastatic cases and breast cancer deaths. The goals of the study are to identify the best clinical context for STING agonist use, amplify its cellular response and retain it in the tumor microenvironment. At the completion of the proposed project, it is anticipated that the findings will result in a presurgical window trial for patients with triple negative breast cancer, who have had a limited response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Thanh U. Barbie, MD
Associate Surgeon, Division of Breast Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Barbie is an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a breast cancer surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Dana-Faber Cancer Institute. Dr. Barbie’s research focuses primarily on elucidating pathways in triple negative breast cancers to develop novel targeted therapies. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, among others. Dr. Barbie received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and her medical degree from the University of Vermont Medical School. She completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital. She completed her fellowship in breast surgery at the Siteman Cancer Center of Washington University in St. Louis.