Attacking metastatic tumours in the brain

Rakesh Jain, PhD, Director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumour Biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and supported by the National Foundation for Cancer Research, has discovered a novel mechanism behind the resistance to HER2- or PI3K-targeted therapies, and a treatment strategy that may overcome treatment resistance.

Rakesh Jain’s discovery could be very important for cancer patients whose cancers have spread to the brain.

This research project directed by Dr Jain may have unlocked a key as to why brain metastases are resistant to HER2+ targeted therapies, and have uncovered a potential treatment strategy to overcome this resistance.

Cancer samples

Using tumour models and human cancer samples, the researchers found an over expression of Human Epidermal Grown Factor Receptor 3 (HER3) in breast cancer-associated brain lesions, and that inhibiting HER3 could help overcome treatment resistance. Dr. Jain’s team found that using drugs that target HER3 combined with those that target HER2 significantly slowed brain metastatic tumour growth and improved survival of the tumour models. These results are the collaborative efforts between Rakesh Jain and Jeffrey A. Engelman, MD, PhD, Global Head of Oncology at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (formerly with the MGH Cancer Center), an expert in targeted therapies and co-senior author of the publication.

Targeting proteins

Cancer therapies that target specific proteins often fail to reign in tumours that have metastasized to the brain, and Rakesh Jain’s collaboration with Jeffrey Engelman could well have revealed the mechanism behind therapeutic resistance of brain metastases in HER-2 positive breast cancer. This breakthrough research “has identified new treatment strategies to overcome this problem which is often lethal to the patients,” says Dr. Jain.

Future trials

Dr Jain hopes that clinical trials and future therapeutic strategies for metastatic breast cancer will include HER3 targeted therapies in treating brain metastasis in HER2+ (or PIK3CA mutant) breast cancer. And since HER3 has been associated with treatment resistance in several types of cancer, this discovery could potentially benefit a much broader group of patients.

says Franklin Salisbury Jr, Chief Executive Officer of NFCR. Research cures cancer, and “NFCR’s support of outstanding scientists like Rakesh Jain is making possible whole new approaches to treating cancer, giving hope and promise to patients with cancer.”