Titles and Affiliations
Professor of Internal Medicine
Assistant Director of Clinical Research
Tyler Frank B Professor of Cancer Research
Co-Leader of the Drug Discovery, Delivery, and Experimental Therapeutics Program
Vice Chair, SWOG Breast Committee
Research area
Improving personalized treatments for triple-negative breast cancer.
Impact
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents 10 to 15 percent of diagnosed breast cancers and is very aggressive and fast-growing. The “triple-negative” in TNBC refers to the cancer cells lacking three key markers found in more common breast cancers: receptors for estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR), or HER2. Unfortunately, this means that TNBC will not respond to drugs that target these markers, leaving TNBC patients with few treatment options. Dr. Sharma’s goal is to assess biomarkers of response to chemotherapy and targeted agents and to study the relationship of race with treatment response in TNBC.
Progress Thus Far
Previous studies have shown that breast cancers that lack capabilities for repairing double-strand DNA breaks or that have immune cell infiltration respond better to treatment. Dr. Sharma is leveraging archived and prospective data from patients participating in SWOG breast cancer clinical trials to identify biomarkers that can inform treatment decisions. Utilizing a cohort of 425 patients from SWOG clinical trials, her team described a novel dual TNBC prognostic classification based on two gene signatures: immune function and DNA damage repair status. They found that TNBC tumors that were negative in both immune and DNA damage repair status demonstrated the poorest prognosis.
What’s next
The team will continue ongoing bioinformatic and clinical correlation analyses based on the completed and upcoming transcriptome data. BCRF funding will also support continued ongoing collection of serial blood samples for SWOG S2212 (SCARLET: Shorter Anthracycline-free Chemoimmunotherapy Adapted to pathological Response in Early TNBC). Future research plans using these samples include isolating circulating biomarkers indicative of minimal residual disease and recurrence, identifying unique toxicity and efficacy biomarkers in relation to race/ethnicity and age, and studying the impact of chemoimmunotherapy regimens on ovarian reserve and recovery.
Biography
Priyanka Sharma, MD is a Professor of Medicine and Assistant Director of Clinical Research at the University of Kansas Medical Center. She completed medical school at University of Baroda, India, and residency and fellowship at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in internal medicine and hematology, respectively. Dr. Sharma serves as the Vice-Chair of the SWOG Breast Committee (2018-present) and has been a member of the SWOG Board of Governors since 2015, as well as a member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) breast cancer steering committee. She is a past recipient of the Advanced Clinical Research Award, Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation (2015-2018) supported by BCRF.
In addition to national and institutional leadership roles, Dr. Sharma is actively involved in clinical and translational breast cancer research. Her long-term research goal is to delineate personalized treatment strategies for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and BRCA mutation-associated breast cancer. She serves as Translational Principal Investigator (PI) of an ongoing NCI-funded SWOG trial for patients with TNBC (S1416) and as PI of an active translational SWOG study (S9313c) which also focuses on TNBC. Outside of SWOG, Dr. Sharma has served as PI of several investigator-initiated trials assessing novel therapeutic agents for breast cancer.
