Shaheen Sikandar
@ssikandar.bsky.social
Assistant Professor, UC - Santa Cruz Cancer and stem cell biologist! www.sikandarlab.com
Excited to share our review where we provide an updated view of stem & progenitor cells in the mammary gland from development through aging - led by my brilliant graduate student Andrew Olander link.springer.com/article/10.1... @stemcellsciencenews.com #stemcells #breastcancer #mammarygland
Honored to see our work highlighted for #WomensHistoryMonth Thank you @ucscscience.bsky.social for the spotlight
UC Santa Cruz Science @ucscscience.bsky.social · 5mo agoFor #WomensHistoryMonth we spotlight Prof. Shaheen Sikandar. Her research shows how early pregnancy may protect against breast cancer by blocking age-related cell changes. A new @americancancersoc.bsky.social grant will allow her to shift focus from cure to prevention. news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/preg...
Incredibly grateful and excited to be part of the ACS family!
American Cancer Society@americancancersoc.bsky.social · 5mo agoWe are excited to be funding Dr. Sikandar's work through a new Research Scholar grant beginning on April 1st!
Excited to share our latest work exploring the link between aging, pregnancy, and breast cancer risk. 🧬 nature.com/articles/s41...
📢 We review the mechanisms of immune evasion in breast cancer, focusing on how cellular plasticity and the tumor immune microenvironment cooperate to suppress detection. 🧬 @chp-pivot.bsky.social www.pivotscipub.com/chp/3/1/0001... #breastcancer #ImmuneEvasion #TumorMicroenvironment #CellPlasticity
The Trojan Horse Within: Mechanisms of Immune Evasion in Breast Cancer
The Trojan Horse Within: Mechanisms of Immune Evasion in Breast Cancer
pivotscipub.com
So proud of the exciting story from my PhD student Jakub Sumbal on contractile fibroblasts shaping branching morphogenesis! Fantastic collaboration with the lab of Zuzana Koledova in Prague! @sumbalovakoledova.bsky.social It just came out online, check it out here: rdcu.be/eIIKD
Contractile fibroblasts form a transient niche for the branching mammary epithelium
Nature Communications - Fibroblasts represent a heterogenous cell population but how their differences reflect their plasticity and origin is not fully understood. Here, the authors map the origin...
rdcu.be
Check out our new study on re-activating estrogen responses in hormone low/negative breast cancer - www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Loss of BPTF restores estrogen response and suppresses metastasis of mammary tumors
Nature Communications - BPTF is known to regulate chromatin accessibility and self-renewal in mammary epithelial stem cells. Here, the authors discover that BPTF inhibition delays tumor formation,...
nature.com
Really happy to share a link to our work showing that anti-progestin therapy could help prevent breast cancer before menopause. Published today in Nature, the study suggests this could be a new way to stop breast cancer before it starts: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/... Brilliant team science
Anti-progestin therapy targets hallmarks of breast cancer risk
Nature - Results of an early-phase breast cancer prevention trial demonstrate the potential for breast cancer prevention in premenopausal women with anti-progestin therapy by inducing...
urldefense.com
Are 90% of cancer-related deaths due to metastasis? Apparently the overuse of this percentage in reviews has created confusion and questioning of whether this is true. The answer, which is as always cancer type dependent, may be in these references that also people claim they cannot find.
Delighted to host Dr. Javier Bravo Cordero at our Cancer Dormancy Institute Seminar Series. Don't miss his exceptional work! @cdi-einstein.bsky.social @einsteinmededu.bsky.social @einsteincellbio.bsky.social
Are you looking for a reliable strategy to quantify the architecture of mammary tissue using whole mount images?? Well, maybe you should check MaGNet, our new computational based and user friendly approach (and you probably can adapt it to other organs as well). link.springer.com/article/10.1...
MaGNet: A Network-Based Method for Quantitative Analysis of the Mammary Ductal Tree in Developing Female Mice - Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia
The mammary gland is a uniquely dynamic organ with a branching architecture that develops entirely after birth in response to hormonal cues. A common approach in mammary gland biology is the evaluation of branching morphogenesis to characterize the role of developmental, physiological and molecular perturbations on branching tissue invasion, growth, and maintenance. Yet, the field still lacks a fully open-sourced, quantitative framework to analyze whole-mount mammary tissue images, as a commonly utilized methodology. Here, we present MaGNet (Mammary Gland Network analysis tool), a method that leverages network theory to characterize key features of ductal branching during mammary gland development. Applying this pipeline to mammary gland images captured at three pubertal timepoints, we achieved reproducible quantification of ductal tree expansion across development. In addition, this network analysis pipeline captures ductal expansion induced by pregnancy hormones. By providing open-source tools to the research community, this method may increase reproducibility and broad applicability across diverse organ systems, model organisms, and developmental stages.
link.springer.com
Interesting in aging, immune function, and organ health? Join us for a super exciting joint Keystone Symposia in Banff, Canada in March 2026!! @ericverdin.bsky.social
So proud of my graduate student Andrew Olander, who received his NIH/NCI F31 fellowship to study how early pregnancy affects the aging of mammary epithelial cells! Earlier this year, it felt like the odds were against us, but it finally came in! 🍾 #BreastCancer #aging #stemcells
Directional cell motility facilitates side-branching in the mammary epithelium in a tension-sensitive manner https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.30.667704v1
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs - Nature
Mouse models show that respiratory infections from viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can trigger metastasis of dormant breast cancer cells in the lungs, a finding supported by epidemiological d...
nature.com
Spread the news! We are excited to expand our research team, working on cellular senescence, at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge. jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/52026/ jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/52027/
a yellow sign that says we 're hiring
ALT: a yellow sign that says we 're hiring
media.tenor.com
Some types of cell are more likely than others to give rise to tumours. A rapid cell cycle is a newly identified predictor of cancer susceptibility. https://go.nature.com/42WjSd1
The cell-division cycle is faster in cell types prone to forming cancer
Some types of cell are more likely than others to give rise to tumours. A rapid cell cycle is a newly identified predictor of cancer susceptibility.
go.nature.com
Mitochondrial transfer between bone marrow cells! Avital Mendelson & team show mitochondrial transfer from megakaryocytes to bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells lowers platelet activation and the process is disrupted in sickle cell disease: buff.ly/Q1HGsUY
Progesterone Receptor Expressing Basal Cells and Progesterone Receptor-Primed Progenitors Redefine the Mammary Epithelial Hierarchy https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.16.648786v1
Excited to share our latest study in @nature.com We used a humanized-mouse ES cell model to explore the functional consequences of all possible BRCA2 missense variants. We've clinically classified >6,500 variants and >1,200 reported in ClinVar! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Saturation genome editing-based clinical classification of BRCA2 variants - Nature
CRISPR–Cas9-based saturation genome editing in a humanized mouse embryonic stem cell line was used for comprehensive functional characterization of single nucleotide variants in a region of BRCA2, and...
nature.com
Hi! This is a brief summary of our favourite work 🧬 - we described the mutational landscape of the healthy human breast and determined differences in clone size and mutations between parous (mothers) and nulliparous women. Have a read here @naturecomms.bsky.social ! 🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Betty Kim & Wen Jiang and colleagues report the design and characterization of an antibody–toxin conjugate targeting CD47, promoting anti-tumor immunity in preclinical cancer models. @bettykimmdphd.bsky.social @wenjiang-nano.bsky.social @mdanderson.bsky.social ⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s43...
An antibody–toxin conjugate targeting CD47 linked to the bacterial toxin listeriolysin O for cancer immunotherapy - Nature Cancer
Schrank et al. report the design and characterization of an antibody–toxin conjugate targeting CD47, promoting anti-tumor immunity in preclinical cancer models.
nature.com
What would federal funding cuts do to a community's local economy, its people, & the next generation? UC Santa Cruz Science Professors Needhi Bhalla, Susan Carpenter, & Carol Greider state it plainly and painfully in yesterday's Santa Cruz Sentinel article. www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/03/20/g...
Guest Commentary | Trump is turning off the lights on biomedical research: Why it matters for Santa Cruz
“These cuts aren’t just about UCSC; they’re about Santa Cruz,” writes Needhi Bhalla, Susan Carpenter and Carol Greider in a Guest Commentary. “This crucial NIH support fuels our l…
santacruzsentinel.com
