Page 16 - 2019 Annual Report

M Physicians is the multi-specialty group practice for the U of M’s Medical School faculty.
M Physician’s world-leading experts in a broad range of specialties and primary care provide our patients with the latest evidence- based medical care; train our medical students, residents, fellows, and graduate students; and advance research toward better medicine.
M Physicians also provides financial support to the Medical School’s research and education priorities.
Therapy Resistance
Breast cancer is a heterogenous disease, and although treatments are constantly evolving, sometimes proven therapies stop working. Douglas Yee, MD, director of the Masonic Cancer Center and professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology, explains the problem.
“In work pioneered by our team at the Masonic Cancer Center, APOBEC enzymes have emerged as a dominant source of cell mutation in breast cancer, which addresses a common, but poorly understood, problem:―the development of resistance to medical therapy.”
A team of researchers led by Dr. Yee and by Reuben Harris, PhD, professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, has been awarded a five-year, $8.5 million grant
by the National Cancer Institute to study this mutation mechanism in breast cancer. They
hope their work will lead to a deep molecular understanding of how tumors mutate and evolve and why they eventually stop responding to therapies that had previously been working well.
1M
PATIENT VISITS PER YEAR
1,200
PHYSICIANS EMPLOYED
2,400
PROVIDERS & STAFF EMPLOYED
40+ LOCATIONS
July
James Pacala, MD, MS, professor and head of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, is awarded $3.74 million in funding for geriatric health.
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