Fondazione Michelangelo ONLUS Milan, Italy
President, Gianni Bonadonna Foundation
Improving response to immunotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer.
Immunotherapies are a promising new class of cancer drugs designed to amplify the immune system to attack cancer cells. In breast cancer, triple-negative breast cancer has shown some response to immunotherapy when combined with chemotherapy, but the proportion of patients who benefit remains low. Consequently, some patients experience the side effects associated with immunotherapies, without clinical benefit. Dr. Gianni and his team are investigating potential biomarkers for response to immunotherapy, to better predict which patients should receive these treatments.
A clinical trial tested the combination of immunotherapy with chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer and was recently extended to high-risk HER2-positive breast cancer. Dr. Gianni’s team is analyzing the samples from these trials to understand the mechanism of immune resistance and sensitivity to develop better immunotherapy strategies. Recent findings show that specific immune cell types, their functional state, and their interactions with tumor cells might inform who benefits most from immunotherapy.
Using advanced technologies, Dr. Gianni and his team are expanding their analysis to further understand the role of additional immune cell types in immunotherapy response. They are correlating the genetic makeup and activity of the tumor with long-term outcomes to assess their prognostic relevance.
Luca Gianni, MD is Co-founder of the Michelangelo Foundation, a non-profit organization designed to advance research in oncology, and chairman of the Breast Cancer Research Committee of Michelangelo. Recently, he was appointed the first President of the “Gianni Bonadonna Foundation” for innovative therapies for cancer.
During his career Dr. Gianni has worked on new drug development in the field of oncology and on the definition of innovative drug therapies in Medical Oncology. Since 1995, he focused on clinical and translational research in women with breast cancer and has overseen clinical and research activity related to breast cancer. Dr. Gianni has conducted and contributed key research on anthracyclines and performed studies of drug disposition of several new anticancer agents. He returned to Italy after his work at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, USA to work with Dr. Bonadonna at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori. In 1983, he launched the first Phase I Unit in Italy and led the phase I projects there until he moved to San Raffaele in 2011 where he was Director of the Department of Medical Oncology until November 2019.
Dr. Gianni has been involved in the development of paclitaxel, and later in that of the HER2-directed antibody trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy. He conducted the NOAH neo-adjuvant trial of chemotherapy and trastuzumab in women with locally advanced/inflammatory HER2-positive breast cancer, that led trastuzumab to become the first approved neoadjuvant therapy in women with HER2-positive breast cancer in Europe.
Dr. Gianni also contributed to the clinical development of pertuzumab to obtain dual block of the HER2 receptor leading to synergistic activity with trastuzumab in HER2+ early and metastatic breast cancer. The studies he chaired brought to the approval of dual block of HER2 as neoadjuvant approach and to the design of the Aphinity adjuvant trial in women with HER2+ early breast cancer. After establishing the profound differences of HER2+ breast cancer depending on the status of the estrogen receptor in the HER2+ tumor, Dr. Gianni and collaborators documented in the NA-PHER2 study the ability of obtaining major antitumor effects with a chemotherapy-free approach in women with HER2+/ER+ operable breast cancer.
In more recent years, under the leadership of Dr. Gianni, the Michelangelo Foundation has launched two major neoadjuvant trials in women with breast cancer with use of the PD-L1 directed immune check point inhibitor atezolizumab in combination with chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer (neoTRIP trial) and in combination with trastuzumab/pertuzumab in HER2+ early breast cancer (APTneo trial).
Dr. Gianni is recipient of several grants and research support, and of several awards, among which he was recipient of the “Gianni Bonadonna Award and Fellowship” by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2011.
2018
The Delta Air Lines Award
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