Marie E. Monaco

Our laboratory is interested in the relationship between fatty acid activation and the aggressive phenotype in breast cancer. Our studies have demonstrated that expression of a specific isoform of fatty acyl-CoA synthetase (ACSL4) is negatively correlated with hormone/growth factor receptor status, and that forced expression of ACSL4 in the presence of receptors induces resistance to targeted therapies. The high expression level of ACSL4 in the most aggressive triple negative breast cancers suggests that it may comprise an appropriate target for the development of additional targeted therapies.