The Scientist Magazine: Heart Attack Elevates Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence
The Scientist magazine highlights findings from our recent publication in Nature Medicine. Our new paper shows how myocardial infarction accelerates breast cancer via innate immune reprogramming. In breast cancer survivors, a post cancer cardiovascular event is associated with a 60% increased risk in both cancer recurrence and cancer-specific mortality. Using mouse models of breast cancer, we showed that a heart attack accelerated tumor growth twofold. Transcriptomic and ATAC-seq profiling reveal a heart attack induced immunosuppressive phenotype that is epigenetically imprinted in bone marrow.
