Francisco J. Esteva, MD, PhD

The goal of this project is to develop predictive markers of response to trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based therapy in breast cancer patients. Dr. Esteva's team performed gene expression analysis in breast cancer tissue from patients undergoing preoperative trastuzumab-based chemotherapy. They obtained pretreatment fine-needle aspiration specimens from 45 patients with HER-2-overexpressing stage II to IIIA breast cancer.

The tissue was subjected to transcriptional profiling. They examined for differential expression of various genes and gene sets. Results of gene set enrichment analysis suggested that the lower expression of genes involved with CD40 signaling is associated with a greater risk of residual cancer after the preoperative chemotherapy that includes trastuzumab.

In the coming year, the researchers will continue to investigate novel molecular markers in primary tumor from patients treated with trastuzumab-based therapy for metastatic breast cancer. In addition, they will conduct in vitro studies in breast cancer cell lines to identify novel mechanisms of resistance to HER2-directed therapies using siRNA libraries to evaluate the role of approximately 20,000 genes in breast cancer cell lines treated with trastuzumab and lapatinib.

Bio:
Dr. Esteva received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Zaragoza School of Medicine in Spain. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center (Camden, NJ). He continued on to Georgetown University Medical Center (Washington, DC) for a clinical fellowship in medical oncology at the Vincent T. Lombardi Cancer Center. Dr. Esteva is board certified in medical oncology, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Esteva has served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)'s Scientific Program Committee and Education Committee; and as faculty for the ASCO annual meeting for several years. He is a member of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) Breast Cancer Committee. He was awarded a Career Development Award from the NCI in 1999. He is a co-author in over 100 publications including peer-reviewed research articles, invited reviews and book chapters.