MARCH 4, 2026, NEW YORK - Researchers led by Ludwig Harvard's Judith Agudo report in the current issue of Nature a new strategy to prevent the metastasis of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive subtype of the disease that remains stubbornly resistant to therapy.
The researchers applied JEDI-a model Agudo developed to study the immune system's surveillance of cancer stem cells, which seed new tumors-to locate TNBC cells that evade immune attack and metastasize successfully in mice. Subsequent studies overseen by Agudo, an associate professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, revealed that these cells often activate the glucocorticoid receptor to evade targeting by the immune system. That finding was in line with recent reports suggesting that activation of the glucocorticoid receptor correlates with metastasis and poor outcomes for TNBC patients.
Agudo and her colleagues also found that mifepristone, a medicine already in clinical use worldwide, could reduce the number of incipient metastases in animal models. Combining it with anti-PD1 checkpoint blockade immunotherapy-which activates an immune assault on cancer cells-further inhibited TNBC metastasis and extended survival.
The study points to a strategy and, notably, a common drug, for evaluation in clinical studies to curtail TNBC metastasis, the predominant cause of death from this and most other cancers.
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute press advisory from which this summary is derived is available here.
