HER2+ breast cancer is more likely to spread throughout the body than some other breast cancers. Researchers around the world have been trying to develop vaccines to prevent this spread, but so far, they’re not really working.
Dr Robert Weinkove at Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington has teamed up with BCFNZ Ferrier Breast Cancer Research Progamme at Victoria University to develop new, more effective anti-HER2 vaccines. They will use a $250,000 grant from BCFNZ’s partnership with the Health Research Council and Breast Cancer Cure to test their new vaccines on metastatic breast cancer cell lines, to see if they can stop the cancer spreading. If that is successful, they will test whether the vaccines produce an immune response in cells from people with and without breast cancer.