Maria del Pilar:
the face of research
THE REASEARCHER
Maria del Pilar Camacho-Leal
BIOGRAPHY:
She lives in Turin with her husband and children
She was born in Mexico City (Mexico) in 1974
Degree in Biology from the University of Mexico in Mexico City
PhD in Biochemistry from the University of McGill in Montreal (Canada)
WHERE SHE DOES HER RESEARCH:
Turin University
Maria del Pilar
tells her story
Maria del Pilar’s story
Studying a severe illness and then finding that you have it.
This is exactly what happened to research biologist Maria del Pilar.
Exemplary stories are usually different: a person is affected by a severe and still largely unknown disease and decides to devote their life to studying it and finding a cure. That’s not how it was for Pilar. The race to find a cure was already underway when, last year, at the age of almost 40, she found out that she had breast cancer.
Of course, the first step was surgery, followed by treatments that allowed a short pause in its activity. The doctor, who was born in Mexico City, works at the laboratory of the Molecular Biology Centre at Turin University, and her work is supported by the Fondazione Veronesi research grant that she has been assigned. She is in Italy because of love: during other specialisations (after her degree in Mexico and PhD at McGill University in Montreal, Canada), she met an environmental researcher from Piedmont, they fell in love and got married.
Treatment and study proceed side by side: once a week, until next November, Maria del Pilar will have to have intravenous treatment. «The advantage of these “smart” drugs is that they don’t touch the healthy areas around the tumour and so have no undesirable side effects».
And then comes the confession: «EWhen I was studying biology, I used to dream of devoting my life to beating different types of cancer. And, in my dreams at least, I succeeded. We’ll see…». Of course, I never thought I’d be making my own personal “contribution”.
Maria del Pilar’s research
Blimp-1, a new regulator of invasion mediated by ERBB2 in breast cancer.
Mammary carcinoma is the most frequent tumour in women and is the main cause of death in western women between the ages of 40 and 50. It’s of crucial importance to understand the molecular changes that take place in mammary carcinoma, in order to develop new and more effective diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive approaches.
In mammary carcinoma, higher levels of this protein determine an increase in cell proliferation and ErbB2 is over-expressed in 25% of breast cancers. It has been previously demonstrated that, in mammary cancers, the increase in the expression of ErbB2 and the adapter protein p130Cas promotes the transformation and invasion of the mammary epithelial cells.
In this invasive condition, we have also identified a new potential modulator of invasion, the protein PRDM1/Blimp1.
The aim of the project is to characterise PRDM1/Blimp1 and study the molecular mechanism which involves it in the invasion in mammary carcinoma cells.
Preliminary data shows an increase in the levels of PRDM1/Blimp1 protein in invasive acini of breast cancers positive to ErbB2. Understanding the mechanism with which PRDM1/Blimp1 induces migration and invasion of mammary carcinoma cells will allow future use as treatment targets for ErbB2-dependent breast cancers.