Small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs, could be great targeted treatment tools for breast and other cancers. The problem is making sure they get packaged and delivered to where they need to go. (pscf11/Flickr)
Breast cancers whose cells carry the HER2 protein are pretty tough customers. They only account for about 20 percent of all breast cancers, but they are some of the most aggressive. While targeted drugs like trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) have made these tumors easier to treat, those that resist these drugs, relapse or don’t have HER2 on their cells’ surfaces can still stymie oncologists.
A molecular phenomenon called RNA interference (RNAi)—in which small pieces of RNA silence the expression of individual genes—could provide an alternative solution for breast and other cancers.
Though it was first discovered in plants, researchers have known for about a decade that small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are active in mammals like us, and are already working on ways to harness them for shutting down genes promoting cancer and other diseases.
The problem with siRNAs for treatment, however, is making sure they get exactly where they need to go. That’s a problem that Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD, has taken a big step toward solving. Full story »
Measuring the total amount of DNA damage within a tumor’s cells could help doctors predict its vulnerability to drugs like cisplatin. (Haukeland universitetssjukehus/Flickr)
Drugs like cisplatin that break DNA are some of the strongest weapons we have against breast, ovarian and other cancers. The problem, common to every form of chemotherapy, is that cisplatin doesn’t work for everyone. Given the potential side effects that go along with the drug—including vomiting, hearing loss and muscle cramps, just to name a few—the decision to give it to a patient becomes something of a gamble: Does the benefit outweigh the risk?
There are tests that examine individual genes and which can give doctors a limited view as to which tumors might respond best to cisplatin. But a multicenter team co-led by Zoltan Szallasi, MD, of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Informatics Program (CHIP), thinks they may have a solution that looks beyond individual genes to see which tumors might succumb to cisplatin and other drugs like it. Full story »
Breast cancers that start off vulnerable to hormone-based treatments often lose that vulnerability over time. A protein called ADAM12 is being developed into a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker, and might also hold the key to treating women with such tumors. (Illustration: Durer’s “Adam and Eve")
About two-thirds of breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, making them quite vulnerable to drugs like tamoxifen that interfere with the hormone. But some 50 percent of such hormone-sensitive tumors start shrugging off tamoxifen treatment at some point and continue to grow.
Marsha Moses and her team in Children’s Vascular Biology Program want to turn the tide against these estrogen- or hormone-independent tumors, which are much more difficult to treat. And they think a protein named Adam – or rather, ADAM12 – might hold the key.
The story starts seven years ago with a search for cancer biomarkers in a fluid far removed from the breast: urine. Over the years, Moses, the program’s director, has collected a large biorepository of human urine and other samples, as well as associated clinical data, which she and her lab use to search for proteins whose presence is associated with different cancers.
In 2004, Moses and her postdoctoral fellow Roopali Roy discovered that the amount of ADAM12 rises in the urine of women with breast cancer as their cancer progresses. Full story »
