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Old 05-19-2009, 05:50 AM   #1
Brenda S
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Promising research for BC Mets?

Has anyone heard about research being done by Dr. Richard Junghans. I saw a piece on our local news last night about research he is doing with T-cells and metastatic BC. He says he has CURED cancer in mice and he has been given approval to begin phase 1 testing in humans this summer. This link describes the report I saw. http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?s=10383299.
Cheers,
Brenda
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Diagnosed 3/08 at age 57
1.1cm tumor, ER-PR-, Her2 3+(rt side)

Grade 2
Node negative
clean margins
Stage 1
lumpectomy 4/08
Mammocite Radiation 4/08
Will begin TCH Chemo 5/08
TCH 3 week cycle for 6 cycles
Herceptin alone for 18 more treatments on a 3 week cycle
Total chemo 12 months
Neulasta 24 hours after each cycle
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Old 05-19-2009, 06:06 AM   #2
Yorkiegirl
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I saw this on our local news as well last night.
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Vicki
Texas
Biopsy Dx'd 3-23-05 Age 48
MRM 4-5-05 w/ 2 tumor's 5cm, and 6 cm (right side)
IDC (poorly differentiated infiltrating ductual carcinoma)
5+/16 nodes
Stage III A
Grade 3
ER/PR-, Her2/neu ++
Ki67 78%
Begin Chemo 5-2-05 4XAC Dose Dense , 4X Abraxane Dose Dense (ended August 05)
28 Rad's ended October 13 2005
Started Herceptin Weekly August 2005 for one year
Had a Simple mastectomy left side after Mamo showed incresed micro-calcifications. Jan. 17 2006.
Brain MRI Feb.2006--All Clear
August 28, 2006 Last Weekly Herceptin.
October 2006--Colonoscopy, 6 Polyp's removed--all B9
PET Scan July 2007
Abdominal MRI Oct. 2007---2 Right Kidney Cysts
Core Biopsy-- Lump on Scar Line 1-10-08---B9
Brain MRI 6-2008--All Clear
PET/CT Scan 6-2008
Sept. 8 2008, 4CM area removed from mastectomy scar line. Proved to be B9.
PET/CT Scan-- July 2009 --All clear
August 17,2009 ---Had Port Removed
6 Years NED -- April 5,2011
DX'd with Melanoma left arm 10-10-2011
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Old 05-19-2009, 06:51 AM   #3
donalddonald
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It is still a long way to go for a phase1 trial !
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My wife:
03/06 First diagnosed at age 33
04/06 resected ER/PR- Her2 +3
05/06 AC + TH followed Herceptin full 1 year
03/08 Right lung mets
04/08 resected
05/08 Xeloda + Tykerb (500 mg)
10/08 Brain mets
1 big (4 cm) and 3 small (1 CM)
02/09 Brain radiation
03/09 left lung spots found
04/09 Vinorelbine + Tykerb (1250 mg)
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Old 05-19-2009, 08:34 AM   #4
Ellie F
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I know this has a long way to go and may not work, but I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that it does and praying that God speeds up the trials!

Praying for a miracle for all
Ellie
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Old 05-19-2009, 01:49 PM   #5
Believe51
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: RHODE ISLAND (Ed getting me a latte on 2nd Cancerversary Cruise 2008) 'BELIEVE': To accept as true or real, To have faith in, To presume ALWAYS BELIEVE
Posts: 2,999
So much has changed in the breast cancer world in the last 3 years and this is yet another step forward to breaking the chain. Each day we live we get one more step closer to finding our way out. Hey, maybe we will never see a cure in our lifetime, but the amazing research that is being done these days is a blessing that we need to be grateful for. We must stay positive while science catches up. Either way science keeps giving us more to be thankful for and has saved many more lives than it could even 5 years ago. Keep the faith!>>Believe51
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9/7/06Husband 50yrs=StageIV IBC/HER2+,BoneMets10/06TaxotereX10,'H'1X wk,Zometa,Tamoxifen4/12/07Last Tax5/18/07Pet=Rapid Cell Activity,No Organ Mets,Lytic Lesions,Degeneration,Some Bone Repair5/07ChemoFail6/01/07Pleural Thoracentisis=Effusions,NoMalignantCells6/19/07+7/2/07DFCI
6/25/07BrainMRI=BrainMets,Many<9mm7/10/07WBR/PelvisRad37.5Gx15&Nutritionist8/19/07T/X9/20/07BrainMRI=2<2mm10/6/07Pet=BoneProgression
10/24/07ChemoFail11/9/07A/Cx10,EndTam12/7/07Faslodex12/10/07Muga7512/13/07BlasticLesions1/7/08BrainMRI=Clear4/1/08Pet=BoneImprovement,
NoProgression,Stable4/7/08BrainPerfect5/16/08Last A/C8/26/08BrainMets=10(<9mm)9/10/08Gamma10/30/08Met=5mm12/19/08Gamma5mets5
12/22/08SpinalMets1/14/09SpinalRads2/17/09BrainMRI=NoNewMets4/20/09BoneScan5/14/09Ixempra6/1/09BrainMRI=NumerousMets6/24/09DFCIw/DrBurstein6/26/09Continue
Ixempra/Faslodex/Zometa~TM now lower7/17/09Stop Ixempra By Choice9/21/09HOSPICE10/16/09Earned His Deserved Wings And Halo=37 Month Fight w/Stage 4 IBC, Her2+++,My Hero!!
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Old 05-19-2009, 10:43 PM   #6
Rich66
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More:
http://www.pbn.com/detail/41645.html

BODY { background: white; padding: 5px 15px; } PRINT THIS ยท CLOSE WINDOW

Posted April 16, 2009
Life Sciences
Five Questions With: Dr. Richard Junghans
By Marion Davis
Contributing Writer

PHOTO COURTESY RWMC

"WE ARE actually ready to treat our first breast cancer patients and will begin during the summer, I expect, to do the first treatments," said Dr. Richard Junghans, chief of surgical research at Roger Williams Medical Center.
When a virus infects your body, T cells hunt down and kill the infected host cells. Now imagine if they could do the same for cancer, zeroing in on tumors and eliminating them.
Dr. Richard Junghans, chief of surgical research at Roger Williams Medical Center, has modified T cells to create “designer T cells” that successfully killed cancer cells in animal trials. Now the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program has awarded him and his team nearly $6 million to try it in human patients, targeting metastatic breast cancers.
The grant, an “Impact Award” – from a program that supports projects “with the potential to have a radical, revolutionary impact” in breast cancer treatment, was a rare coup: Not a single applicant in 2007 succeeded, and only two, including Junghans, did last year.
Junghans answered questions about the grant and his work.
PBN: What do you mean by designer T cells?
JUNGHANS: Designer T cells are patients’ own T cells that have been genetically modified to fool them into thinking that the cancer has a virus infection. T cells evolved to kill our own cells, but those that are infected with viruses. … Unfortunately, T cells don’t see cancer as being foreign, for the most part, so they just treat it like it’s normal tissue. Our trick is to go into the machinery of T cells and modify it in such a way that we create new receptors to educate them to go after the cancers as if they were virus-infected. There’s a number of ways to do that, and we will approach several over the five-year period of this award.
PBN: So where are you with this?
JUNGHANS: We are actually ready to treat our first breast cancer patients and will begin during the summer, I expect, to do the first treatments. We’ve done animal studies, and we’re actually completing a safety study with the designer T cells in general cancer patients – so far it’s been safe, but we’re going to be doing other things to increase the effectiveness to attack the cancers and chase them down wherever they are in the body.
PBN: How do you do that?
JUNGHANS: Many people know about a protein in breast cancer called HER2, but there’s a protein that is even more common in breast cancer called CEA, Many people know about a protein in breast cancer called HER2, but there’s a protein that is even more common in breast cancer called CEA. Antibodies against CEA don’t do anything, but it’s a very good target for us to use with T cells, because T cells have their own little weapons on board. All that the T cells have to do is recognize the cancer and once they unleash their weapons, the cancer cells are destroyed within minutes.
So what we’ve done is geared up T cells that will go after cancer cells that express CEA on them. That accounts for a third to half of breast cancers, but that’s still a lot more than HER2, where the fraction is only a fifth to a quarter. And if the cancer has HER2 and is spread throughout the body, the antibodies won’t cure it; they will just slow it down, whereas we’re really going for a cure with these designer T cells. Our whole aim is to be able to eliminate breast cancer cells wherever they are in the body. That’s why we’re gearing up so heavily to do this, taking women who are otherwise certainly going to die from their disease and try to cure them.
PBN: So what will the studies entail?
JUNGHANS: Our first study will be to use high doses of designer T cells and give them either without or with a growth factor called interleukin-2 (IL2). Our first test is going to be: Does this T cell growth factor lead to an improved function of these designer T cells, or do they cure the cancer even without the IL2? That’ll take about a year, once we get started.
Then the second experiment will explore using other growth factors, IL12 and IL15, which will make these T cells expand and possibly be more potent when we do give them to the patients.
There’s another protocol where we will use these cells where we’ll give high-dose chemotherapy prior to the T cells. That creates a space in the body and the T cells go in and say, there’s not many T cells around (because of the chemotherapy), so we’re going to expand. That will increase up to 100-fold the number of T cells that we infuse.
And then we’re doing a basic research component in which we’re looking at ways to make more advanced versions of designer T cells by putting in more signals into the cells. Everything I’ve told you so far uses the T cells we have, which the FDA has approved for use in humans, and which have been created and passed through all sorts of testing. … But we’re not going to rest that. We are going to initiate laboratory tests that will go on concurrently with these clinical tests to develop third-generation designer T cells which brings in new types of signals, new ways that these T cells can persist and act against the tumor.
PBN: How big a patient base are you going to be working with?
JUNGHANS: Over a period of five years we are looking at treating somewhere around 60 or 70 patients. Most of the patients will be treated at Roger Williams, but when we are in the Phase II study portion of the plan with an established protocol of treatment … we could treat at more than one institution, and we may. … Dana Farber and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas are interested in this, for example, so we may get some collaborations to treat patients at distant sites for part of this study.
No one’s done this yet in humans. There’s maybe half a dozen clinical trials around the world using designer T cells, none specifically for breast cancer, we have one of the most advanced constructs anywhere that are approved for human testing. So designer T cells are just emerging as a new way of treating cancers.
I think within five years we’re going to see a designer T cell agent somewhere approved as a new “drug” for routine use in human cancers. And all that patients will have to do is go to a blood bank, and the blood bank will draw a unit of blood, and they’ll ship it to a facility that will purify T cells, modify them, expand them, put them in a bag and send them back and they’ll get them infused at their home oncology clinic. We’d be able to do thousands of patients every year, hopefully to reduce significantly the number of patients who have to die from breast cancer every year. That is the goal of our research.
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Old 05-19-2009, 10:50 PM   #7
Rich66
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Company the researcher is on board of:
http://www.excelimmune.com/?q=Boards
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Old 05-20-2009, 01:17 AM   #8
jones7676
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Thank you to all of you for the links and information you have provided.
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Barb

10/03 Radical Mastectomy 3 cm tumor - 1/17 Nodes Stage II B, Her 2 +++ ER-/PR- 11/03 4 AC 4 Taxol 12/05 Stage IV - Lung met , Bone mets - Carbo, Taxotere, Herceptin 9/06 - 2 cm brain tumor 10/06 - Tumor removal surgery - Herceptin Halted 12/06 gamma knife tumor base.1/07 Navelbine/Herceptin 4/07 Rads to R femur 5/07 Stereotactic - new 2 cm brain tumor 4/07 Start Xeloda 5/07 Tykerb added 7/07 Brain MRI clean 10/07 .055 cm brain met found. 12/07 Stereotactic -1 cm brain tumor Start Tykerb 11/07 Abraxane/Herceptin 5/08 Cisplatin, Gemcitabine/Herceptin 6/08 Stereotactic to 1cm 9/08 Stereotactic repeat (growth). 11/08 Pet Scan Good but new tiny met on L lung/dead Brain surgery (no cancer cells found/scar tissue) 1/09 Chemo restarted 2/09 Pet Scan Bad - R larger very active/active L active lymph nodes both sides of chest MRI- mets slight increase 2/09 Start Doxil/Tykerb Treatment
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