Official Project Description
Breast cancer is a leading cause for cancer-related deaths in women around the world.
The disease can result from many different genetic mutations and exhibits a high degree of variability.
Furthermore, breast cancer is prone to metastasizing (spreading to other parts of the body) and therapeutic resistance.
Mutations in a protein known as BRCA1 are one of the hereditary risk factors for developing breast cancer.
Determining how these mutations disrupt common structural features is a key step in developing therapeutics to combat breast cancer.
Many single amino-acid substitutions in BRCA1 lead to increased risk of cancer, but it is unknown how these variants lead to loss of function.
The p194XX series of projects is dedicated to understanding how mutations in the N-terminal RING domain of BRCA1 lead to deleterious effects.
In p19412, we are simulating the wild-type BRCA1 to gain a baseline understanding of the dynamics for the healthy protein.
We hope that this knowledge can lead to a key strategy for developing a small molecule drug capable of "structure correcting" mutant BRCA1.