Gina Sizemore, PhD, and her lab specialize in identifying the causes of metastatic breast cancer at the molecular level. One anomaly they have discovered in the microenvironment that exists in breast tissue is a protein called platelet-derived growth factor-B (PDGFB). In this new episode, Sizemore, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and a member of the Cancer Biology Program, explains that in some women with breast cancer “the PDGFB level is really high compared to a normal [non-cancerous] breast.” Further research found that a high level of PDGFB increases the odds that a patient’s breast cancer will metastasize and travel to the brain. This is an important discovery because “when this happens there is a very poor prognosis, the median survival rate is 10 or 11 months,” Sizemore said. “Something about PDGFB allows the cancer cells to travel to the brain more readily and grow, and if we can figure out why, we can target that and block that from happening or reduce it when it happens.”