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Every October, starting from when I was young, I remember clambering into my mother's Volkswagen in our matching "Race for the Cure" shirts to drive into downtown Denver before the sun rose, the roads still bathed in the tangerine glow of the streetlights. The race bibs we wore always said, "I walk for Wilma Parnell," my maternal grandmother, who died from breast cancer when my mom was just 11 years old. The fight against breast cancer has come a long way since those early mornings, and now we could be on the verge of multiple breakthroughs. "The good news is that there really isn't enough time to talk about all of the exciting things that are happening," says Dorraya El-Ashry, PhD, chief scientific officer for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). Here are some of the advancements that experts find encouraging.
A few vaccines are in the works, but one of the most notable is by Anixa Biosciences in partnership with Cleveland Clinic. Anixa's vaccine is a three-shot series being tested initially in breast cancer survivors, who generally have a higher recurrence rate, and targets a particular protein involved in lactation -- one that, for unknown reasons, is also made by breast cancer cells. Amit Kumar, PhD, the chairman and CEO of Anixa Biosciences, says the idea of the vaccine is to teach women's immune systems to destroy any cell making that protein, potentially stopping cancer at the source. Anixa's vaccine is currently wrapping its first round of trials. If these trials are successful, Anixa will eventually begin testing the vaccine in women who have never had breast cancer.
A newer class of drugs called antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are able to target cancer cells while sparing healthy cells. These drugs combine chemotherapy -- or another anticancer drug -- with an antibody to target a particular cell with molecular alterations for the most pinpointed treatment possible. A drug called Enhertu shows particular promise with aggressive cancers, like HER2-positive, which have either spread to other parts of the body or are more likely to spread. ADCs, along with immunotherapy drugs like checkpoint inhibitors, which allow the immune system to attack cancer cells, may finally begin to move the needle for these notoriously hard-to-treat forms of cancer.
Chemotherapy works by attacking rapidly dividing cells like those found in breast cancer, but in a sometimes devastating side effect, also targets hair follicles. Joseph Hernandez, the chairman and founder of Perseus Therapeutics, says his company is working on an antibody that blocks the protein that grows hair, essentially stopping the hair's natural growth cycle. "You can do chemotherapy, and the [hair follicle] cells don't die," he says. It's still at an early stage -- Perseus is currently finishing its first round of animal trials -- but the company hopes to begin human trials soon.
If things continue moving at such a swift pace, El-Ashry is hopeful. "The next 10 years will bring us even more significant advances than we've seen in the previous 10 years," she says. One day, I might not have to bring my own daughter to the Race for the Cure -- by then, it may have already happened.