Objective
HER2+ breast cancers are an aggressive type of breast cancer and have a poor prognosis. There are many therapies currently on the market to target this type of cancer, however they fail to deliver effective clinical results due to therapy resistance. In our ERC-CoG project, we found that proper endosomal trafficking is required for functional HER2 oncogenic signalling at the plasma membrane. Targeting HER2 endosomal traffic can result in effective treatment of HER2+ cancers, without the risk of therapy resistance. As such, this innovation could deliver the first truly effective cancer treatment for HER2+ breast cancer patients that do not respond to current treatments. In this ERC-PoC, we aim to prove that therapeutic targeting of endosomal traffic is effective in HER2+ cancer models in vivo, as a monotherapy and synergistically with current therapeutic antibodies, and to explore the commercial avenues to exploit this finding.
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Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
20014 Turku
Finland