Rumela Chakrabarti, PhD

Titles and Affiliations

Associate Professor

Research Area

Exploring how circadian rhythm influences immunotherapy efficacy in triple-negative breast cancer.

Impact

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer with fewer targeted treatment options. Immunotherapy has become a viable option for some patients with this subtype in recent years, but not every patient benefits equally. Dr. Chakrabarti has discovered that a specific subpopulation of immune cells promote progression of TNBC. Their presence in patients’ tumor samples is linked to poorer outcomes, particularly in patients whose tumors do not respond to immunotherapy. Preclinical models and patient data suggest that aligning the timing of treatment to the body’s natural circadian rhythm is correlated with better outcomes data. These insights could lead to more effective, personalized strategies for treating TNBC.

What’s Next

The team will study larger groups of patients to confirm how this immune cell activity and circadian rhythm influence treatment outcomes. They will also investigate the biological mechanism behind the impact of treatment timing by examining specific genes known to affect circadian rhythm. These studies aim to guide future clinical trials that incorporate circadian timing into treatment plans, ultimately improving outcomes for patients with TNBC.

Biography

Rumela Chakrabarti, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery in Miller School of Medicine. She is a full member of the Tumor Biology program in Sylvester Cancer Center and is also a co-director of Surgical Breast cancer research group. Before this position, she was an Assistant Professor in University of Pennsylvania for 6 years and was funded by DoD Breast Cancer Research, K22/NCI grants, NIH/NCI R01 and several University of Pennsylvania grants. Her laboratory focusses on the role of immune and stromal cells such as tumor macrophages, myeloid derived suppressor cells, Natural killer cells and cancer fibroblasts in tumor microenvironment shaping the fate of cancer stem cells during relapse, recurrence and metastasis. Her laboratory has developed a wide variety mouse tumor model and utilizes human patients’ samples, organoid co-culture, PDX, confocal microscopy, RNA-sequencing, single cell sequencing besides other standard molecular and biochemical techniques to address these questions. The long-term goal of Chakrabarti lab is to identify novel combination therapies targeting both stromal and cancer cells to ultimately decrease patient mortality associated with aggressive breast cancer. Her research is currently funded by NCI/NIH R01, American cancer Society Research Cancer Stem Cell Consortium grant, and Breast Cancer Research Foundation grants.