Dr Rachael Natrajan

Breast cancer is no longer thought to be a single disease, but is rather a collection of several diseases that we know are genetically different from one another. The majority of patients however, are treated with standard chemotherapies that are toxic and produce many unpleasant side effects.

Our aims are to identify new treatments in these different breast cancers in order to offer patients more personalised treatments. Recent technological advances have enabled us to sequence the whole of a patients DNA make-up in a matter of days. Currently huge sequencing efforts are being undertaken all around the world to identify and characterise cancer patients’ DNA. This will aid the identification of new mutations in genes that contribute to tumour development. However the challenge is the further understanding of these mutations to tumour development, and whether we can target such mutations with drugs that are already available for clinical use. 

The aim of the research in the Functional Genomics team is to identify the key genetic events that lead to tumour growth and identify new treatments for these. By looking at cell line models that have specific mutations with many drugs that are available for patient use, we hope to identify a drug that stops these particular cancer cells from growing.

Ultimately our aims are to identify new treatments for specific subgroups of breast cancer patients. This will allow clinicians to choose the most non-toxic suitable drug for that particular patient in order to offer a more personalised treatment.

Dr Rachael Natrajan did her PhD studying the molecular pathology of the paediatric kidney cancer Wilms Tumours at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton with Dr Chris Jones. 

Subsequent to this, Dr Natrajan joined the Breakthrough Toby Robins Breast Cancer Research Centre as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, training with Professor Jorge Reis-Filho. Her research has focused on the heterogeneity of breast cancers and has identified that different subgroups of breast cancer are characterised by distinct arrays of genomic alterations.  

Dr Natrajan’s work has already revealed some significant genetic alterations specific to different subtypes of breast cancer and has highlighted potential new drug targets.