# Project 3: Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Biomarker Development for Triple Negative Breast Cancer

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2021 · $469,225

## Abstract

Project 3 Abstract
Triple-Negative Breast Cancers (TNBC = negative by clinical assays for ER, PR and HER2) are among the
most clinically challenging because of their inherent aggressive biology and lack of treatment options, which is
typically limited to chemotherapy only. These tumors are more common in African American women and young
women, and contribute to racial outcome disparity differences. To advance our knowledge of the biology of
TNBC, we believe it critical to precisely define the biological entities that are present within this known
heterogeneous group and to determine what is the driving biology. This should then allow us to identify robust
biomarkers of response for the most relevant therapeutics that are, or might be, used in the breast cancer clinic
for TNBC patients. TNBC are composed of multiple disease subtypes including Basal-like, Claudin-
low/Mesenchymal, and Luminal-type tumors. We propose a divide-and-conquer approach where we will first
use a biomarker strategy to segregate TNBCs into these more homogenous biological subtypes, and then
target a key feature, or features, of each subtype in order to make advances for personalized medicine. For
TNBC patients, chemotherapy treatment is still quite effective for many; therefore, we will continue our studies
aimed at identifying the most chemotherapy responsive subset of TNBC patients. Many TNBC patients have
tumors with sizable immune cell infiltrates as demonstrated by us and others. The presence of intra-tumor
immune cells predict a better prognosis, and we hypothesize this feature might also predict the benefit of
immune oncology directed agents as well. We propose to test this hypothesis and if successful, identify
biomarkers for chemotherapy and immune therapy responsiveness in TNBC patients in order to deliver these
drugs to the subset of patients whom would benefit the most.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10244931
- **Project number:** 5P50CA058223-27
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** CHARLES M PEROU
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $469,225
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1997-08-05 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10244931

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10244931, Project 3: Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Biomarker Development for Triple Negative Breast Cancer (5P50CA058223-27). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10244931. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*