# CELL POPULATION HETEROGENEITY IN TRIPLE NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER DISPARITIES

> **NIH NIH R21** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $218,588

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT:
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive and difficult to manage disease that disproportionately
afflicts underrepresented minority populations. Tumor cellular heterogeneity is a major source of treatment
resistance and resilience, but is poorly understood. Thus, better understanding of tumor heterogeneity will lead
to development of therapeutic strategies to treat underrepresented minority TNBC patients. The objective of
this proposal is to identify and characterize biomarkers of cell subsets that drive tumor resilience in African-
American (AA) patients. The central hypothesis is that differential cell population heterogeneity contributes to
disparate TNBC prevalence and treatment outcomes in AA and other underrepresented patient groups. The
rationale for the proposed research is that better understanding of tumor cellular heterogeneity will result in
new and innovative approaches to TNBC treatment for underrepresented minority TNBC patients. Therefore,
the hypothesis will be tested by pursuing the following specific aims: Aim 1) Identification of phenotypic states
in AA TNBC with single cell RNA-seq; Aim 2) Associations of candidate biomarker sets with AA TNBC, clinical
variables, immune phenotypes, genomic information, and outcomes in a TNBC neoadjuvant trial. The
proposed research is innovative, because of the novel approach to use single cell profiling to define and
understand novel tumor cell lineages and microenvironment for AA TNBC tumors. The proposed research is
significant, because it is expected to advance and expand our understanding of tumor heterogeneity and drug
resistance in AA TNBC patients. Such knowledge is a critical foundation for the development of cancer
therapies targeting vulnerabilities of tumor heterogeneity in AA TNBC patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9959642
- **Project number:** 1R21CA238066-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID F STERN
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $218,588
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-03-10 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9959642

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9959642, CELL POPULATION HETEROGENEITY IN TRIPLE NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER DISPARITIES (1R21CA238066-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9959642. Licensed CC0.

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