Targeting Dormant Chemo Resistant Breast Cancer Micro Metastasis A Study of Drug Resistance in Invasive Cancer Cells

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide. In the United States, a woman has a one in eight chance of developing invasive breast cancer in her lifetime and a one in thirty-five chance of dying of breast cancer. A 2007 study by the American Cancer Society expected the disease to cause 40,910 deaths that year alone. (Jemal et al, 2007) Clearly, any research which may lead to curing or even mitigating breast cancer is worth pursuing. This project consists of a study on drug resistance in breast cancer and one way to overcome it. Before discussing my specific research, I want to provide some general background. To begin with, I will define cancer in a general sense. Cancer results when cells in a certain part of the body grow out of control. These cells originate as normal body cells which grow, divide, and die in a controlled and specific fashion. When these normal cells become abnormal, they begin to divide and grow uncontrollably, forming tumors and invading parts of the body in which they do not belong, a process which can be extremely harmful and often deadly. We label the resulting disease cancer.