At the University of Bradford in one of the projects funded by the wonderful donors and fundraisers of Secondary1st Professor Pors and his PhD student Enrica are continuing their work to improve duocarmycins, a very effective but highly toxic chemotherapy, so that they can be used to treat breast cancer. In the second year of this project, the researchers have been assessing which types of breast cancer have the highest amounts of a group of CYP proteins called CYP450. These CYP proteins would be able to turn on the inactive form of duocarmycin once it’s inside a tumour.
Understanding which types of breast cancer have more CYP proteins should reveal to Professor Pors and Enrica which groups of patients are most likely to benefit from this potential new targeted therapy.
Enrica has also been testing the duocarmycin variant in combination with other drugs already used to treat breast cancer. Finding potential drug combinations that could enhance the action of the duocarmycin even further could improve overall survival rates in the long term. Her data so far shows that using the duocarmycin variant alongside a PARP inhibitor drug works well. Now the researchers need to work out why this is.
Enrica has also been spending her time experimenting on different laboratory set ups to better mimic the tumour conditions seen in the body. For example, by reducing the amount of oxygen available to the breast cancer cells in the lab. This is because tumours typically have poor access to oxygen. This should provide more useful information about the effectiveness of the duocarmycin variant in conditions that are closer to the disease we see in people.
Enrica will continue testing the duocarmycin based treatment:
- Alone and in combination with other drugs
- In breast cancer cells that are resistant to current treatments
- Using different oxygen and nutrient levels available to breast cancer cells grown in the lab
So far, Professor Pors reports that the preliminary results are promising. These investigations, as well as plans to test the modified duocarmycin alongside radiotherapy, will be carried out in the final year of the PhD project. A duocarmycin-based treatment could offer new hope to patients whose breast cancer has become resistant to several other drugs. When a new drug is developed, it is most likely to reach people with secondary breast cancer first, as this is where the greatest need is. The information generated in this research project could support the progression of a duocarmycin treatment to a clinical trial.
