My guest today for the Making Sense of Science podcast is Camila dos Santos, associate professor at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, who is a leading researcher of the inner lives of human mammary glands, more commonly known as breasts. These organs are unlike any other because throughout life they undergo numerous changes, first in puberty, then during pregnancies and lactation periods, and finally at the end of the cycle, when babies are weaned. A complex interplay of hormones governs these processes, in some cases increasing the risk of breast cancer and sometimes lowering it. Witnessing the molecular mechanics behind these processes in humans is not possible, so instead Dos Santos studies organoids—the clumps of breast cells donated by patients who undergo breast reduction surgeries or biopsies.

​Show notes:

2:52 In response to hormones that arise during puberty, the breast cells grow and become more specialized, preparing the tissue for making milk.

7:53 How do breast cells know when to produce milk? It’s all governed by chemical messaging in the body. When the baby is born, the brain will release the hormone called oxytocin, which will make the breast cells contract and release the milk.

12:40 Breast resident immune cells are including T-cells and B-cells, but because they live inside the breast tissue their functions differ from the immune cells in other parts of the body,

17:00 With organoids—dimensional clumps of cells that are cultured in a dish—it is possible to visualize and study how these cells produce milk.

21:50 Women who are pregnant later in life are more likely to require medical intervention to breastfeed. Scientists are trying to understand the fundamental reasons why it happens.

26:10 Breast cancer has many risks factors. Generic mutations play a big role. All of us have the BRCA genes, but it is the alternation in the DNA sequence of the BRCA gene that can increase the predisposition to breast cancer. Aging and menopause are the risk factors for breast cancer, and so are pregnancies.

29:22 Women that are pregnant before the age of 20 to 25, have a decreased risk of breast cancer. And the hypothesis here is that during pregnancy breast cells more specialized, as specialized cells, they have a limited lifespan. It's more likely that they die before they turn into cancer.

33:08 Organoids are giving scientists an opportunity to practice personalized medicine. Scientists can test drugs on organoids taken from a patient to identify the most efficient treatment protocol. 

​Links:

Camila dos Santos’s Lab Page.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs