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Updated 12/14/2007

Research

The abstracts mentioned below are downloadable pdf files and are provided by CIHDR for public access. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat, click HERE to obtain the free Acrobat viewer.

As stated in the abstract for the Center, the first five years of its research focuses on why breast cancer occurances among Black women (Incidence chart) in the US and West Africa experience are at a younger age and have more aggressive and lethal tendencies then in White women (Mortality chart).

The research itself is divided into four seperate projects, each one examining a seperate but intertwined concept. These projects and their abstracts are listed below. The project abstracts can be accessed by clicking on the project name itself.

Project 1 (McClintock):

  • Based on an animal model of social regulation of mammary tumor biology developed in her laboratory, Dr. McClintock will compare the gene regulation in mammary tumors and the ovarian function of socially isolated and group-living rats.

Project 2 (Olopade):

  • Dr. Olopade (a) looks at the molecular characterization of primary patient samples in Nigeria and Chicago’s South Side to see if alterations in BRCA 1 contribute to breast cancer in younger Black women and (b) explores the McClintock model in primary patient samples.

Project 3 (Gehlert, Masi and Furumoto-Dawson):

  • Drs. Sarah Gehlert (project leader) and Christopher Masi, along with Alice Furumoto-Dawson Ph.D. explores emic views of breast cancer and its treatment and test the McClintock model with community volunteers. In the latter, neighborhood and community factors (such as collective efficacy and crime), living situations and social connectedness, behavioral responses (such as vigilance and perceived stress), and biological (e.g., cortisol levels) and health outcomes (most notably breast cancer) are examined.

Project 4 (Conzen):

  • Dr. Conzen studies the rate of mammary tumor growth, response to chemotherapy, and chemoprevention in two animal models.

Tissue Core (Krausz, Tretiakova and Delgado):

  • The Tissue Core provides analysis of mammary tissue, utilizing the extensive experience of the Human Tissue Resource Care of the UC's Department of Pathology. The University of Chicago has more then 10 years of experience with breast cancer tissue collection and examination, having more then 5000 archived diagnostic cases and over 150 fresh frozen samples.

For pictures of the CIHDR Faculty/Student Research groups, click HERE.

For a text-based map of the CIHDR site, click HERE.

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