Breast Cancer Biology

Previous and current research
The move of the Epithelial Cell Biology group from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Thomas Guy House allowed the merging of a laboratory, which has for many years worked on the cell and molecular biology of breast cancer, with the Cancer Research UK funded Clinical Breast Cancer group. As part of an effort to introduce novel therapies into breast cancer treatment, clinical trials in immunotherapy evaluating various formulations based on the tumour associated variant of MUC1 have been carried out. Since this antigen is differently glycosylated in breast cancers, there is a major commitment to aspects of glycobiology which relate to both the mechanisms involved in the change in glycosylation pattern, and how this change relates to the immunogenicity of the antigen. In the wider context of understanding the malignant change in breast cancer, the laboratory has focused on working with the specific epithelial cell type from which breast cancers develop and how c-erbB2 over-expression regulates gene expression in this cell type. This has led to the identification of a novel gene PLU-1, which is upregulated in breast cancers and which itself appears to be involved in gene regulation. The laboratory work on c-erbB2 is paralleled by studies in the clinic using the c-erbB2 reactive antibody Herceptin/Trastuzumab for immunotherapy of patients with c-erbB2 expressing tumours.