By Elizabeth Allen, 210-450-2020

Ratna Vadlamudi, Ph.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is co-principal investigator of the study examining tumors' response to hormone therapy.
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Rajeshwar Tekmal, Ph.D., and Ratna Vadlamudi, Ph.D., professors of obstetrics and gynecology in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, have been awarded a three-year, $600,000 Susan G. Komen for the Cure research grant to study combination therapies that could prevent hormone therapy resistance in some breast cancers.

Dr. Tekmal, the principal investigator, and Dr. Vadlamudi, the co-principal investigator, will use a drug already approved to treat hot flashes during menopause called Menerba. They will test the ability of its active compounds alone and in combination with hormone production blockers to see if they can delay or prevent a tumor’s resistance to hormone therapy.

Predicting resistance
Resistance to commonly used hormone therapies occurs in half of breast cancer patients. The development of this resistance is associated with a number of changes at the molecular level. To best manage treatment so as to avoid this resistance, physicians must be able to predict the body’s response to the hormone therapy. In this study, the two researchers are testing a combination therapy to see if it can prevent therapy resistance. They will also examine molecular changes to help identify cancer biomarkers that could provide more information about how best to begin treating a particular breast cancer.

Rajeshwar Tekmal, Ph.D., principal investigator of the study, is a professor and the Carl J. Pauerstein Professor in Reproductive Research, in the School of Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

If they are successful, one advantage of this study is that it can move quickly into human trials, since the proposed drugs in the combination are already approved for human use.