Featured Grantee

Quick Facts

  • Name:  Harold I. Saavedra Lugo
  • Comes from:  Barceloneta
  • Lives in:  Peñuelas
  • Leisure time activities: Cooking, reading, yoga meditation, tertulias with friends
  • Likes:  Indian and Arabic foods
  • Unsuspected talent: Learning Argentinian tango
  • Currently reading:  National Geographic issue on archaeological excavations in Jerusalem.

 In a nutshell

  • My research matters because… it will help the survival outcomes of Puerto Rican and African American women with breast cancer.
  • One of the inspirations for my research has been… Dr. Magda Morales and the late Dr. José Ramon Ortiz. My current collaborator and mentor Dr. Srikumar Chellappan.
  • The best thing about my job is… presenting my lab’s work at national and international meetings.
  • My career highlight so far has been… Obtaining R01 funding at Emory University.
  • My advice to aspiring researchers is… Be persistent.  Hard work pays off.

Interview:

I became a researcher after obtaining the  NIH Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) undergraduate research scholarship at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus.  I initially wanted to study medicine but I went to one of the top biology research labs at UPR-RP, directed by Dr. Magda Morales, and she encouraged me to study biomedical sciences. I completed my Ph.D. at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Tennessee.  I chose this school because of three top Puerto Rican researchers and my role models, Drs. Magda Morales and José Ramón Ortiz had attended that school.  I became a cancer researcher under the direction of Dr. Wen K. Yang, my thesis advisor.

We have three main projects:

A) Triple-negative breast cancers are a highly malignant and deadly form of breast cancer that is more prevalent in African American and Latino women and more prevalent in Puerto Rican women relative to other Latino women.  We are studying whether ancestry (more African and less Native genetics) plays a role in cancer health disparities.   This has been funded by the Puerto Rico Science Trust Advanced grant and a full U54 project.

B) The second project in the lab is to address how mitotic kinases can be exploited to curb the malignant behavior of triple-negative breast cancers.  Our ultimate goal is to inhibit these kinases with drugs to diminish the malignant behavior of these cancers.  This has been funded by the Puerto Rico Science Trust Advanced grant and a full U54 project.

C) The third project is how the E2F transcription factors drive early stages of metastasis in triple-negative breast cancers.   This is led by a Ph.D. student in the lab, Ms. Shirley Jusino.  She is funded by a prestigious F31 graduate student fellowship from the NIH.

The development of biological agents against triple-negative breast cancers, including immunotherapy and the development of anti-mitotic therapies.

Writing scientific manuscripts and grants and presenting in scientific meetings.

My research will make a difference because we look for novel treatments that target breast cancers that are more prevalent in African American and Puerto Rican women.

I love to travel.