Characterisation of Triple Negative Breast Cancer biomarkers identified using DNA-Aptamers

This thesis focuses on identifying new drug targets for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is a chemotherapy-resistant and highly aggressive type of breast cancer. Because it has limited targeted therapies TNBC patients tend to succumb to the disease within 5 years of diagnosis. Using small pieces of tumour-targeting DNA called aptamers, this study identified seven new possible TNBC drug targets, and shows that targeting or inhibiting the correct function of the proteins alpha-enolase or stratifin may be useful for the development of extremely specific tumour cell targeted therapies that reduce the aggression of TNBC tumours.