January 15, 2026
Most breast cancer patients do not die from their original tumors. They die when cancer spreads.
In groundbreaking preliminary research, Rita Hleihel, a cancer researcher at the American University of Beirut (AUB) who has garnered international attention for her work, has found that disabling a single protein—nucleophosmin-1, or NPM1—in triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and deadliest type, prevented the disease from spreading in animal models.
“Although it's preliminary, our hope is that this work will eventually help stop cancer from spreading and, once translated from the lab to patients, will help people live longer," Hleihel
Her lab's work centers on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in part because it metastasizes—spreads to other organs—so invasively and rapidly. Unlike many cancers, TNBC cells lack the estrogen, progesterone, and growth receptors that modern cancer drugs are designed to target. As a result, it is a particularly devastating form of cancer.
“Current treatment options, such as chemotherapy, help improve primary tumors and may extend a patient's life, but they remain ineffective when it comes to metastasis," Hleihel explains. “Most TNBC patients relapse and die."
Her approach to this problem grew out of a different field. She began her career studying blood cancers, focusing during her doctoral and postdoctoral work on the NPM1 protein in leukemia. After years of working on blood malignancies, her research expanded into solid tumors. That shift led to a pivotal observation.
“We found that the same protein is highly expressed in triple-negative breast cancer and other types of solid tumors," she says. Hleihel and her team began targeting NPM1 in triple-negative breast cancer models and are currently working on the same target in other solid tumor types. “When we reduced the expression of this protein in triple-negative breast cancer cells and tested the effect in mice, we didn't see metastasis," Hleihel says.
That promising result places her work in largely uncharted territory. “Many other laboratories are studying this protein in different cancer types," she says, “but much of that research has focused on tumor growth or molecular behavior in isolated cells. We are testing the problem from a totally different perspective, attempting to stop something more fatal: the effect of NPM1 on TNBC metastasis. We are asking whether targeting this protein can interrupt the spread of cancer in a living system."
The urgency of the work is sharpened by what Hleihel sees in the MENA region. “What is particularly alarming is that we're seeing increasing numbers of cases in younger women, including women in their thirties," she says. Why triple-negative breast cancer appears to be rising among younger women in the region remains unclear, “but the implications of the research extend far beyond the region," she notes, “because triple-negative breast cancer remains one of the most difficult forms of the disease to treat worldwide."
For Hleihel, the project is not only scientific; it's also personal. She conducts the research with an all-women team of students, postdocs, and collaborators. “We work on this project with tears in our eyes," she says. “We imagine that patients could be our relatives or ourselves. We want our work to be a real source of hope."
The research has started to move beyond the lab—and into the spotlight of the global scientific community. In 2025, Hleihel was named a L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science laureate and received the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie's Dolla Karam Sarkis Prize, both honors recognizing her work on the mechanisms underlying cancer metastasis.
Now, the work is entering a critical new stage.
Hleihel's team has begun directly studying patient specimens, using genetic analysis to map the pathways that drive metastasis and identify new therapeutic targets. The resulting data will guide the next phase of experiments, testing whether the mechanisms uncovered in the lab can be translated into strategies that interfere with the disease in patients.
“What we are trying to do now is to move from understanding to intervention," as Hleihel puts it, “so we can find a way to stop metastasis before it starts."