Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who develop resistance to trastuzumab may soon have an alternative therapy, according to recent findings published in Clinical Cancer Research. This therapy involves HER2-Affitoxin, a protein that combines HER2-specific affibody molecules and a modified bacterial toxin, PE38, according to study investigator Jacek Capala, PhD, DSc, of the National Cancer Institute. Instead of interfering with the HER2 signaling pathway as trastuzumab does, this protein uses HER2 as a means to supply a form of bacterial toxin specifically to the HER2-positive cancer cells. On absorption of the toxin, the cells’ production of protein is inhibited and the cells are destroyed.
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