Pierre Foidart, researcher at GIGA Cancer, gets a BAEF fellowship for a post-doctoral stay at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Pierre Foidart, who completed his doctorate in the Laboratory of Tumour and Developmental Biology (GIGA - Cancer) at ULiège, has been awarded a BAEF (Belgian American Education Foundation) grant. This one-year grant will allow him to continue his research at the prestigious Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard Medical School) on triple-negative breast cancer.
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fter obtaining his medical degree in 2014, Pierre Foidart turned to medical oncology, opting for a training that alternates between clinical and scientific research. His thesis, carried out at the GIGA cancer of the University of Liège under the supervision of Prof. Guy Jerusalem, Prof. Agnès Noël and Dr. Nor-Eddine Sounni, focused on triple-negative breast cancer, a subtype of breast cancer that does not express estrogen and progesterone receptors and does not overexpress the HER2 protein. It is this triple absence that gives it the name triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This cancer cannot be treated with hormone therapy or anti-HER2 therapy and is therefore currently treated almost exclusively with chemotherapy (sometimes combined with immunotherapy).
Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for up to 20% of breast cancers (about 1,500 - 2,000 new cases per year in Belgium) and usually affects younger patients, under 50 years of age. Although chemotherapy is quite effective, unfortunately there are still too many situations where the disease is resistant to or eventually escapes chemotherapy. It is therefore essential to find new therapies for TNBC or to improve the effectiveness of current treatments.
In 2019, after his thesis, Pierre Foidart started a post-doctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) of Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Prof. Kornelia Polyak, whose expertise on the evolution and heterogeneity of breast cancers is recognized worldwide. The DFCI has cutting-edge research, innovative clinical trials and is one of the most popular oncology centers in the world. It is a real opportunity for the young researcher to continue his basic and translational training (without clinical activity) on TNBC. The research carried out in the laboratory made it possible to demonstrate, in a preclinical model, that this cancer was initially sensitive to the combination of Palbociclib (a cell cycle inhibitor used clinically in breast cancers expressing hormone receptors) and an inhibitor (JQ1) interfering with the expression of genes (known as "epigenetic") developed at the DFCI and currently undergoing clinical study.
Unfortunately, resistance to this combination eventually occurs and the resistant cells have an abnormal/dual number of chromosomes (aneuploidy/tetraploid) compared to the remaining sensitive cells. This could nevertheless make them more susceptible to elimination by immune cells under the effect of immunotherapy. His 4-year work in Boston therefore aims to prove the efficacy of immunotherapy on TNBC in an aneuploidy/tetraploid situation and to determine the best treatment sequence between immunotherapy and Palbociclib-JQ1 combination in order to maintain disease control.
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Since its founding in 1947, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, has been committed to providing adult and pediatric cancer patients with the best treatments available today, while developing the cures of tomorrow through cutting-edge research.
ABOUT THE BAEF POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP (RESTRICTED ACCESS)
