Dipali Sharma, PhD

Revealing the molecular links between obesity, the microbiome, and breast cancer and developing strategies to disrupt them.

Impact

Obesity is correlated with increased breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women. The prevalence of obesity in the United States and increasing rates observed worldwide make it a global health crisis. Dr. Sharma and her team study the molecular changes induced by obesity that promote breast cancer development, progression, and metastasis. They also focus on the intersections between obesity and the microbiome (the bacteria that reside throughout our body). Many studies found that the complex makeup of the microbiome changes with disease or other alterations to our physiology— including obesity—and these changes in bacterial populations may have profound effects on the body. Dr. Sharma’s team is working to reveal how obesity, and obesity-induced changes in the microbiome, may influence breast cancer.

Progress Thus Far

Dr. Sharma and her team have identified harmful bacteria that promote cancer, as well as beneficial ones that may boost treatment success. They have also uncovered the molecular connections between obesity-related changes in fat cells and in the tumor microenvironment that drive cancer growth.

What’s next

The team will continue to test beneficial bacteria and their metabolites (“postbiotics”) to slow cancer growth, improve treatment response, and reduce therapy resistance in multiple laboratory models. Their next step is to develop probiotic and postbiotic combinations to re-sensitize resistant tumors to existing therapies. Success will provide the proof needed to move these approaches toward clinical trials, offering new hope for prevention and treatment in a patient group with urgent needs.

“If not for BCRF, we would not be able to ask innovative high-risk, high-gain questions and push the breast cancer research field forward. BCRF allows us to be bold and follow important “out-of-the-box” ideas and bring them to fruition.”