News: Breast SPORE

Targeting specific molecules in breast tumors, called methylating agents, can turn up the immune response, potentially making tumors responsive to immunotherapy, suggests a new study published in Nature Communications.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has received $2.3 million to fund a clinical research trial testing a combination of three immunotherapy compounds for patients with a specific type of advanced breast cancer.

Overexpression of HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) is found in about 25 percent of breast cancers and is associated with poor outcomes. HER2-amplified breast cancers use signaling through a complex of proteins called mTORC2 to drive tumor formation, tumor cell survival and resistance to HER2-targeted therapies. Rebecca Cook, Ph.D., and colleagues have now […]

Several investigators in Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s (VICC) Breast Cancer Program have received grant awards to support translational research that may improve disease outcomes for patients. The grants totaling more than $3 million will fund mechanistic science and clinical trials designed to test novel therapy combinations and determine why some forms of breast cancer become resistant […]

Combination therapy using two approved immunotherapy drugs for cancer treatment may cause rare and sometimes fatal cardiac side effects linked to an unexpected immune response. In a study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) investigators and published in the Nov. 3 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers describe two cases of […]

The primary method used to test compounds for anti-cancer activity in cells is flawed, Vanderbilt University researchers reported May 2 in Nature Methods. The findings cast doubt on methods used by the entire scientific enterprise and pharmaceutical industry to discover new cancer drugs. “More than 90 percent of candidate cancer drugs fail in late-stage clinical […]

A targeted therapy for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer, has shown potential promise in a recently published study. TNBC is the only type of breast cancer for which there are no currently approved targeted therapies. The new study led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators has identified gene alterations […]