Journal of Breast Cancer Survival

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Breast Cancer Survival-Dr. LaBarge's team specializes in developing human cell systems for understanding why aging is a major risk factor for breast cancer.-Mark LaBarge

United States

Department of Cancer and DNA Damage Repair,
Life Science Division,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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Mark LaBarge

Address:

1 Cyclotron Rd, MS 977,
Berkeley, CA 94720,
USA.

Research Interests:

  • Dr. LaBarge's team specializes in developing human cell systems for understanding why aging is a major risk factor for breast cancer. 
  • The objectives of his research program are to generate a comprehensive understanding of the micro-environmental and tissue-level changes in breast that arise with age, and then develop a functional understanding of how those changes: alter mammary gland homeostasis, contribute to breast tumor genesis, and modulate activity of therapeutics. 
  • A cornerstone of their approach involves the use of a growing collection of primary human mammary epithelial cell (HMEC) strains, dubbed the HMEC Aging Resource, that were derived from reduction mammoplasty, mastectomy, and peripheral tumor dissections. 
  • They explore the functional impact of aging on various lineages of HMEC, at different stages of cancer progression, by probing them with combinatorial bioengineered culture substrata and measuring outcomes quantitatively with imaging and molecular analyses. 
  • In doing so, they continue to derive a catalog of micro-environmental, epigenetic, genetic, cellular, and tissue-level changes that occur normally with age, and are trying to determine mechanistically which of those changes increase the vulnerability of older women to breast cancer.
  • Put differently, they are deriving a growing list of potential therapeutic targets and biomarkers of breast aging and breast cancer susceptibility.
  • Dr. LaBarge says his dream is to identify primary breast cancer prevention modalities that are so safe, they become common place.

Biography:

  • Dr. LaBarge received a B.S. in Genetics from UC Davis, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Stanford University. 
  • He became passionate about the biology of breast cancer during his postdoctoral training at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with his mentor Mina Bissell, Ph.D., where he was an American Cancer Society Fellow, and where he built novel high throughput cell-based systems for studying human mammary stem cell fate decisions in the contexts of combinatorial microenvironments. 
  • In 2009 he won a Transition to Independence Award from the National Institute on Aging and joined the LBNL faculty. 
  • In 2015 he was awarded the Era of Hope Scholar Award from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program to support his team's efforts to translate their laboratory findings into prevention-focused breast cancer therapeutics, which is a major focus of his current research.

Awards:

  • 2005, American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, American Cancer Society
  • 2008, Future Leaders, New Directions Award, American Association for Cancer Research
  • 2009, Transition to Independence Award, National Institute on Aging
  • 2012, Future Leaders, New Directions in Aging Research, Gerontological Society of America
  • 2015, Era of Hope Scholar Award, Department of Defence's Breast Cancer Research Program