Trial Information

Academia Sinica Investigator Award 2010

Ji-Hong Jhu (朱紀洪, Hospital President, M.D./surgeon) and Huey-Kong Sytwu (司徒惠康, M.D., Ph.D.)
at the National Defense University Hospital. The investigators will then study the molecular
signaling effect of specific phytocompounds already identified to confer in vivo (mouse),
anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory activities, in primary/organoid cultures of human breast
tumor cells under ex vivo conditions. Finally, the investigators intend to identify the key
molecular regulators, immune-modulatory effectors of test stromal immune cells that are
affected by the candidate phytomedicines, using molecular and cell biology assays to
investigate the interplay between immune cells and tumor cells in the stromal tissues.

Our study is expected to reveal one or more highly specific, anti-inflammatory
phytocompounds that mechanistically confer specific effects on stromal fibroblast or immune
cell types, resulting in potent anti-tumor effects on test mammary carcinoma systems. Five
Specific Aims are thus designed to investigate the immuno-modulating effects of specific
medicinal constituents from TCM materials. The experimental findings obtained from this
study would provide insights in the molecular, cellular and signaling mechanisms/effects of
several medicinal phytocompounds that may have potential applications in chemoprevention or
herbal medicine adjuvant treatment of human breast cancers.