Science

Christian Badr: Targeting SCD could be a promising strategy for developing more effective treatments for BCBM

Christian Badr/LinkedIn

Apr 6, 2025, 17:10

Christian Badr: Targeting SCD could be a promising strategy for developing more effective treatments for BCBM

Christian Badr, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital, shared a post on LinkedIn about a paper he co-authored with colleagues published in Communications Biology:

“New findings from our lab! We show that inhibiting the enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) has a dual effect on breast cancer brain metastasis (BCBM):

It directly attacks cancer cells by disrupting their lipid metabolism, leading to endoplasmic reticulum stress, DNA damage, and cell death.
It also enhances the immune system’s ability to fight the tumor by increasing antigen presentation, promoting cytotoxic T cell infiltration, and reducing immunosuppressive cells in the tumor microenvironment.

This suggests that targeting SCD could be a promising strategy for developing new and more effective treatments for BCBM.

Yet another fantastic collaboration with the Bensinger Lab UCLA, led by Alessandro Sammarco! Grateful to everyone who contributed to this work and our funding support who made it possible.”

“Targeting SCD triggers lipotoxicity of cancer cells and enhances anti-tumor immunity in breast cancer brain metastasis mouse models”

Authors: Alessandro Sammarco, Giorgia Guerra, Katharina Eyme, Kelly Kennewick, Yu Qiao, Joelle El Hokayem, Kevin Williams, Baolong Su, Cagri Cakici, Hayk Mnatsakanyan, Valentina Zappulli, Steven Bensinger, Christian Badr.

Christian Badr: Targeting SCD could be a promising strategy for developing more effective treatments for BCBM

More posts featuring Christian Badr.

Alessandro Sammarco Baolong Su BCBM Breast Cancer breast cancer brain metastasis Cagri Cakici cancer Christian Badr Communications Biology Giorgia Guerra Hayk Mnatsakanyan Joelle El Hokayem Katharina Eyme Kelly Kennewick Kevin Williams OncoDaily Oncology ScD stearoyl-CoA desaturase Steven Bensinger Valentina Zappulli Yu Qiao

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