Susan E. Clare, MD, PhD

2007-2008 BCRF Project:
Made possible by generous support from One-A-Day Women's Multivitamins
Co-Investigator: Anna Maria Storniolo, MD, Indiana University School of Medicine

Why do patients suffer recurrence after receiving optimal treatment? Drs. Clare and Storniolo hypothesize that it is because the treatment is unable to reach a fraction of cells which lie too far from the nearest blood vessel. As these cells are distant from the vascular supply, they also do not receive enough oxygen. The lack of sufficient oxygen is called hypoxia. The body's response to hypoxia is to recruit immune cells, called monocytes, to the tumor and more specifically, to the areas of hypoxia. Once there, the monocytes become macrophages and act as enablers of the malignant breast cells; for example they help recruit a blood supply to the tumor.

The researchers propose to use the macrophages as a Trojan Horse to deliver therapy to hypoxic areas of breast tumors. The therapy to be delivered are gold-silica nanoshells which are smaller than 1/1,000 the width of a human hair. These nanoshells have the property of transforming light energy into heat. By irradiating the nanoshells, the investigators propose to destroy the tumor enabling macrophages as well as their neighboring malignant breast cells.

Mid-Year Progress Report:
Drs. Clare and Storniolo report that they have completed in vitro (laboratory) experiments which have demonstrated that: 1) Both monocytes and macrophages avidly ingest (by phagocytosis) the gold-silica nanoshells; 2) Laser irradiation (in the near infrared) of the nanoshell-laden macrophages results in destruction of these cells; 3) Nanoshell-laden macrophages infiltrate tumor spheroids, which are laboratory models of hypoxic breast cancers. The macrophages are destroyed by irradiation which appears to damage the neighboring cancer cells. This data has been published in Nano Lett. December 2007.

Bio:
Dr. Clare is Assistant Professor, Division of Breast Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine. She is also a Guest Scientist/Visiting Professor at the Universitäts-Frauenklinik, Tübingen, Germany. She received a B.A. (Biology), M.S. (Chemistry) and Ph.D. (Chemistry) from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Clare is an Alpha Omega Alpha graduate of Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL. Following completion of an internship and residency in general surgery at Northwestern, Dr. Clare was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Patricia S. Steeg, Ph.D., Women's Cancers Section, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Clare's current laboratory research interests include a) The utilization of nanovectors for the treatment of breast cancer, b) The development of the normal breast particularly with regard to the role of progenitor cells, and c) The effect of surgical extirpation of a primary breast cancer on the growth of micrometastatic disease present at the time of operation. Dr. Clare is an active member of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium.

Dr. Clare and her colleagues, Anna Maria Storniolo, M.D. and Connie Rufenbarger, Consumer Representative, Catherine Peachey Fund, Inc., continue to develop the Indiana University normal breast tissue and biospecimen bank. The bank can be accessed on the Web at: https://iubcrc.iupui.edu/ffl_admin/login.jsp