Carboplatin +/- Nivolumab in Metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer

This research study is a Phase II clinical trial. Phase II clinical trials test the safety and effectiveness of an investigational intervention to learn whether the intervention works in treating a specific disease. "Investigational" means that the intervention is being studied. The FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) has not approved nivolumab for your specific disease but it has been approved for other uses. The FDA has approved carboplatin as a treatment option for your disease. The purpose of this research study is to determine how well carboplatin, by itself, or together with nivolumab, works in treating breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Nivolumab is a recently discovered human monoclonal antibody. An antibody is a type of protein that your immune system (the system that defends your body against potentially harmful particles) uses to find and destroy foreign molecules (particles not typically found in your body, such as bacteria and viruses). Scientists can now make antibodies in the laboratory and produce them for the treatment of many different diseases. Nivolumab works by attaching to and blocking a molecule called PD-1. PD-1 is a different molecule that can turn off the immune system by interacting with PD-L1 on the cancer cell. Nivolumab has been shown in research studies to prevent PD-1 from shutting down the immune system, thus allowing it to recognize and help your body destroy the cancer cells. You are being asked to participate in this study because triple-negative breast cancer has shown elevated rates of PD-L1 expression. Nivolumab has been used in other research studies and information from those research studies suggests that nivolumab may help shrink or stabilize your triple negative breast cancer in this study