LSI Challenge: Health

This project aims to try to find the right drugs for the right patients

The HER2+ breast cancer (BC) subtype makes up ~20% of BCs. The standard of care for many patients with early-stage disease is treatment before surgery with the anti-HER2 monoclonal antibodies trastuzumab and pertuzumab together with chemotherapy, followed by surgery. 40% of patients achieve pathological complete response (pCR) to therapy, with no tumour remaining at surgery. Increasing pCR rates could improve long term survival. Debbie is looking for “biomarkers” that are needed to predict which patients will have a pCR and who will not. Debbie is looking for blood-based biomarkers that could be used to put patients on the right clinical trials.