Titles and Affiliations
Assistant Professor
Research area
Investigating combination therapy for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
Impact
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive disease that accounts for approximately 15 percent of breast cancer cases. It disproportionately affects women under 40, with an especially high incidence among Black and Hispanic women and those harboring a mutation of the BRCA1 gene. It carries a worse prognosis than other forms of breast cancer and often proves resistant to any form of single-agent therapy, including immunotherapy since in many cases the immune system struggles to detect and attack these tumors. Dr. Shulman is investigating whether low-dose radiation therapy (LDRT) can act like a virus inside the tumor, triggering signals that activate the immune system and cause cancer cell death, making tumors more vulnerable to immunotherapy.
What’s next
Dr. Shulman’s team has shown that radiation successfully triggers this immune-activating signaling in preclinical TNBC models and leads to a specific form of cancer cell death. Building on this, they are now combining low-dose radiation and a specific type of immunotherapy with a drug that further promotes this cell death process, to test whether this three-part combination can overcome immunotherapy resistance in metastatic TNBC. These findings suggest that radiation can serve as a safe, non-invasive way to activate the immune system against cancer, and lay the foundation for advancing this strategy toward clinical trials, with potential benefits for other hard-to-treat cancers as well.
Biography
Rebecca M. Shulman, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer center. She attended medical school at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. She completed her residency training in radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, where she contributed to numerous clinical and translational research studies. Throughout her training, she has directed and collaborated with programs devised to extend the inclusivity and global reach of medical education. Dr. Shulman’s research focuses on combining biological discoveries, including our expanding knowledge of inflammatory and immune cellular mechanisms, with the innovative techniques of precision radiotherapy to devise effective cancer treatments.
