Cancer Disparities

Investigator

Identifying a Gene Elevated in Triple-negative Breast Cancer of African American Patients

Khalid Sossey-Alaoui, PhD.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly lethal form of breast cancer, that disparately affects African American (AA) compared with Caucasian American (CA) women with more than 2-fold increase in death rate in AA, even after adjusting for socioeconomic position, age at diagnosis, and treatment modalities. Recently, we discovered that this disparity may be the result of increased oncogenic activity of the YB1 gene signaling and its associated signaling pathways, which contribute to therapy resistance and the aggressiveness of TNBC tumors in AA women.

Our innovative multidisciplinary approach has the potential to lead to new YB1-targeted treatment options, predict those patients who would benefit from these targeted approaches, and provide a biomarker for progression and therapy resistance of TNBC in AA women. Our investigations will also elucidate the complex interactions between genetics, environment, socioeconomics and lifestyle that may contribute to the observed differences with the ultimate goal of developing and implementing more efficacious population-based strategies to improve health equity for this vulnerable population.

Selected Publications

Rana PS; Wang W; Alkrekshi A; Markovic V; Khiyami A; Chan R; Perzynski A; Joseph N and Sossey-Alaoui K. YB1 Is a Major Contributor to Health Disparities in Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Dec 14;13(24):6262. doi: 10.3390/cancers13246262.

Alkrekshi A; Wang W; Rana PS; Markovic V and Sossey-Alaoui K. A comprehensive review of the functions of YB-1 in cancer stemness, metastasis, and drug resistance. Cell Signal. 2021 Jul 3;85:110073.

Complete List of Publications

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%28sossey-alaoui%29+NOT+%28Geffard%29&sort=pubdate