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Someone called this website to my attention and several of you have touched on it, as well. I went to the website and want to decipher what I put in caps, which is part of their paragraph under "Rationale" for one of the clinical trials.
Will someone please explain this to me? I thought I was smart and managed to get through my science classes with some respectable grades, but this is a bit too "mediciney" for me. I guess my main question is: are the her2 a malignant transformation of healthy cells or cancer cells? And, when people talk about being NED, does that mean that her2 is still part of us, but not malignant?
Title: A Phase I Safety and Efficacy Trial of a DNA Plasmid Based Vaccine Encoding the HER-2/neu (HER2) Intracellular Domain in Subjects with HER-2/neu-Overexpressing Tumors Study Population / Indication Breast cancer: Stage III or Stage IV breast cancer in remission and defined as "no evidence of disease."
RATIONALE: HER2 has been demonstrated to be a relevant antigen to target with immune-based therapy. IT IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE MALIGNANT TRANSFORMATION OF CELLS, IT IS OVEREXPRESSED ON SEVERAL ADENOCARCINOMAS, AND IT IS IMMUNOGENIC. The intracellular domain (ICD) of HER2 is immunogenic, and vaccination with an ICD-based vaccine is protective against the development of tumor in a pre-clinical model. HOWEVER, CANCERS ARE NOT THE RESULT OF SINGLE GENETIC MUTATIONS OR PROTEIN OVEREXPRESSIONS.
It goes on, but these sentences leapt out at me and raised a question in my understanding of her2.
Thanks for your comments...your non-science major,
Vicki Z
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