Generously funded by Donors of Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada

Peter Siegel – McGill University – Montreal, QC

Project Title: “Trastuzmab Derxtecan as an optimized therapeutic strategy for HER2-HER3 expressing brain metastases”

Description of Project:

Brain metastases are the most common brain tumors, afflicting over 11,000 Canadians each year. Brain metastasis occurs when cancer, most commonly of the lung, breast, skin, or colon, spreads to the brain. It is associated with a dismal prognosis, particularly for the majority of patients who are not eligible for surgery due to the number and extent of their brain metastases. Despite abundant research, very few advances have been made in developing targeted medicines specifically for patients with brain metastases. However, a new drug that was recently approved for a subset of breast and lung cancers, called Trastuzumab Deruxtecan (TDXd), has shown promise for patients with brain metastases in clinical trials. This proposal aims to understand why TDXd works effectively in the brain in contrast to other drugs and then apply this knowledge to expand the number of patients with brain metastases who stand to benefit from this new drug.

What receiving this award means:

Brain metastases are associated with a dismal prognosis, particularly for the majority of patients who are not eligible for surgery due to the number and extent of their brain lesions. Despite abundant research, very few advances have been made in developing targeted medicines specifically for patients with brain metastases. Receiving this award will allow us to gain critical insights into how such patients will respond to a new therapy (TDXd), which targets a protein frequently expressed and activated in brain metastases (HER2). We hope this research will lead to the initiation of new clinical trials to optimize and expand the subset of patients with brain metastases who will derive the greatest clinical benefit from this therapy.