NCI Division of Cancer Biology Junior Investigators Meeting (Abstract): Submission #10
Submission information
Submission Number: 10
Submission ID: 194041
Submission UUID: 59ef355f-95c9-44e7-af49-e3d87943e526
Submission URI: /dcb/ji-meeting/abstract
Submission Update: /dcb/ji-meeting/abstract?token=SbYOusmFs-hoodwr2cZ9PDq4h871cbS-Jp0qGzrdtKs
Created: Tue, 09/08/2026 - 09:06
Completed: Tue, 09/08/2026 - 09:06
Changed: Tue, 09/08/2026 - 09:06
Remote IP address: 10.208.28.41
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English
Is draft: No
serial: '10'
sid: '194041'
uuid: 59ef355f-95c9-44e7-af49-e3d87943e526
uri: /dcb/ji-meeting/abstract
created: '1788872786'
completed: '1788872786'
changed: '1788872786'
in_draft: '0'
current_page: ''
remote_addr: 10.208.28.41
uid: '0'
langcode: en
webform_id: nci_junior_investigator_abstract
entity_type: node
entity_id: '1818'
locked: '0'
sticky: '0'
notes: ''
metatag: meta
data:
category: 'Use my abstract for team formation only (do not consider it for a presentation)'
degree_s_: Ph.D.
email: anna_michmerhuizen@med.unc.edu
first_name: Anna
keywords_abstracts: 'breast cancer, metastasis, metastatic tropism, computational modeling, precision oncology'
last_name: Michmerhuizen
middle_initial: ''
organization: 'University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill'
organization_address:
address: ''
address_2: ''
city: 'Chapel Hill, NC'
country: ''
postal_code: ''
state_province: ''
summary: 'Metastatic breast cancer typically progresses to grow in critical organs and is the primary cause of breast cancer-related deaths. We and others have shown that organotrophic metastatic behavior is associated with the molecular subtype of the primary tumor. Specifically, the basal-like “intrinsic” subtype metastasizes preferentially to the lung and brain, HER2-enriched subtype to the liver, and luminal subtypes to the bone. Using data from 2486 human breast tumors where many have progressed to metastases (bone, brain, liver, lung, or multi-metastases [2+ sites]), we performed supervised machine learning to develop logistic regression models predictive of site-specific metastasis employing elastic net regularization for selection of interpretable features and model building. First, models predictive of distant metastasis were successfully built to classify patients based on whether their tumor will metastasize (AUC = 0.67). We next trained models predictive of site-specific metastasis, including a luminal bone metastasis model (AUC = 0.75), where selected features identify patients with bone metastases only (i.e. no visceral metastatic sites [brain, liver, lung]). Tumor cell intrinsic and microenvironment extrinsic features were selected in the final model. A model for multi-metastases was also developed (AUC = 0.68), and features associated with multi-site metastasis include hypoxia, clinical HER2 status, correlation to the HER2-enriched molecular subtype, and lymphovascular invasion. These overall modeling results suggest two distinct metastatic phenotypes (bone and viscera), which are supported by the performance of published site-specific metastasis signatures. Our models of site-specific metastasis may provide clinically useful biomarkers and nominate unique features for mechanistic studies.'
title: 'Postdoctoral Research Associate'
ttile: 'Identifying drivers of organ-specific breast cancer metastasis'