Breast cancer (BCa) and prostate cancer (PCa) are two of the most commonly occurring invasive cancers in African American women and men, respectively. Although they arise in anatomically different organs with distinct physiological function, a unique feature of both cancers can be hormone-dependence and thus, remarkable underlying biological similarity has been observed between the two malignancies. Using untargeted 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics we identified several common and unique metabolites and biological pathways in plasma samples from BCa and PCa patients compared to plasma samples from women and men with no diagnosis or family history of either type of cancer (controls). Multivariate analysis demonstrated greater differentiation in the metabolic profiles between control plasma samples for both men and women, with an increase in the level of some amino acids, but no differences between short chain fatty acids.  Comparison between control women versus BCa patients demonstrated decreases in all library-matched, significant metabolites except for increases in β-hydroxybutyrate and formate in patients. Analysis of control men and PCa patients showed increased levels of most amino acids but decreases in short chain fatty acids.  Interestingly, pathway evaluation showed decreased glucose utilization in comparisons between both sets of control samples and cancer samples, individually, but no difference between controls versus cancer samples.  Metabolically relevant markers can serve as a viable means for earlier cancer detection, to have a major impact on cancer outcomes for African Americans, who suffer disparate burdens from these cancers, in-part because of delayed diagnoses and poor treatment efficacy associated with later-stage disease.

Yasmine Kanaan is an associate professor at the Howard University College of Medicine and Howard University Cancer Center in Washington DC, United State of America. Dr. Kanaan is an educator, she teaches Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Biology to Medical, Dental, Nurses and Graduate students. She served as a mentor, research advisor and trained 12 doctoral students and served on various other doctoral candidate committees.  She has over 126 publications and abstracts in breast and prostate cancer research. Dr. Kanaan has extensive collaborative research efforts in directions that delineate molecular differences in breast cancers amongst the two ethnic groups (African Americans and Caucasians). The aims of which will help identify ethnicity specific biomarkers for breast cancer progression and in developing a more tailored treatment approach leading to better management of breast cancer in African American women. Dr. Kanaan has been serving as an editorial board member and manuscripts reviewer for several reputed journals. Due to her academic and research accomplishments, Dr. Kanaan has been an invited speaker in several national and international venue.