Medical oncologist Dr. Mina Sedrak, director of the UCLA Center for Cancer and Aging and co-director of Cancer Control and Survivorship Research at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support research aimed at improving muscle health and physical function in breast cancer survivors.
The award will fund a project examining why many breast cancer survivors, particularly older women treated with chemotherapy, experience accelerated loss of strength, mobility and independence. While advances in cancer care have significantly improved survival, many patients face lasting physical challenges that affect their quality of life long after treatment ends.
To address this gap, Sedrak, along with Dr. Jonathan Wanagat, a geriatrician at UCLA Health and co-director of the Los Angeles Pepper Center, will lead an interdisciplinary team with expertise in cancer, aging, muscle biology, radiology, physical therapy and biostatistics. By integrating detailed clinical assessments with advanced imaging and molecular analyses, the team will study the biological mechanisms driving accelerated muscle decline in breast cancer survivors — analyzing muscle tissue, mitochondrial function, and markers of aging and inflammation — with the goal of identifying new strategies to improve recovery.
"We still don't know why some patients recover fully after cancer treatment while others never quite do," said Sedrak, who is also an associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine. "This award will help us understand why so many survivors are left with declining function — and, ultimately, how to give them their health back."
Along with Sedrak and Wanagat, the team includes Dr. Melissa Spencer, Dr. Neema Jamshidi, Dr. Kristen Reider, Dr. Amy Vandiver and Dr. Catherine Crespi.
