Eminent researcher, educator to be MD Anderson’s fourth president
Summer 2011 : Roadblock Clears Path for Herceptin
Adding saracatinib shrinks resistant breast tumors
Siyuan Zhang, Ph.D. (left), instructor and first author on the paper that coupled saracatinib with Herceptin, works closely with mentor Dihua Yu, M.D., Ph.D. Photo: Wyatt McSpadden
Breast cancer tumors take numerous paths to resist the targeted drug Herceptin®. But a single roadblock at a crucial crossroads may restore a tumor’s vulnerability to treatment.
Adding the drug saracatinib to Herceptin shrinks previously resistant tumors by cutting off at least five different molecular pathways, each of which can be resistant, says senior author Dihua Yu, M.D., Ph.D., professor in MD Anderson’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
“Saracatinib didn’t work as a single agent, but very few drugs work by themselves against late-stage disease,” Yu says. “Our experiments confirmed its lack of efficacy as a sole treatment in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials against late-stage cancers. But combined with Herceptin, it works beautifully.”
Reported in the April 2011 edition of Nature Medicine.
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