Former Head of Department, Breast Cancer Research at the Danish Cancer Society

During my time as the Head of the Breast Cancer Research Department at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen my team developed and characterised a number of anti hormone resistant human breast cancer cell lines derived from the parental cell lines, MCF-7 and T47D. MCF-7 and T47D sublines resistant to the antiestrogens tamoxifen or fulvestrant were generated by long-term treatment with 1 µM tamoxifen or 0.1 µM fulvestrant and selection of surviving colonies. Cell lines resistant to the aromatase inhibitors letrozole, anastrozole and exemestane were generated by long-term aromatase inhibitor treatment of MCF-7 cells growing under conditions at which testosterone simulated cell growth via conversion to estradiol. The antihormone resistant cell lines offer utility for developing novel predictive biomarkers for therapy response and for providing a better understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms of resistance, supporting new drug discovery. Through an agreement between the Danish Cancer Society and Cancer Research Technology these cell lines were made available on the Ximbio platform. This removed the burden of MTA transfer requests (particularly following my retirement from academia) and facilitated their licensing to a number of Pharma companies. With my agreement the cell lines were deposited at the UK cell repository ECACC in order to make them even more widely available as authenticated models of drug resistant breast cancer.

Dr. Anne Lykkesfeldt, Danish Cancer Society