Triple negative variety most deadly.

• Position: Breast Cancer

Each year, about 230,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women In the U.S. It remains the third-leading cause of death, behind heart disease and lung cancer. Of the new cases, about 20% will be diagnosed with "triple negative" breast cancer (TNBC), a deadly form that does not respond to standard treatments such as tamoxifen or aromatase Inhibitors.

TNBC is a subtype of breast cancer that lacks three important receptors that are used as targets for cancer treatment: estrogen, progesterone receptors, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). This indicates that TNBC is not supported by the hormones or other factors known to trigger growth of other forms of breast cancer. Because of these challenges, there is an Intense interest by physicians and researchers to develop medications to treat TNBC.

JoEllen Welsh, professor of environmental health sciences at the University at Albany (N.Y.) and her team at the Cancer Research Center are among those working toward developing therapies that will be successful in halting TNBC.

Welsh and her team have discovered that 1,25D--the active form of vitamin D--suppresses the...