Rewiring Cancer Signaling to Virotherapeutic Activation

Dr. Michael Lin at Stanford University has engineered clinically approved viral vectors to selectively kill cancer cells that are driven by abnormally high levels of HER2 signaling. He will now test systemic administration of these engineered vectors to treat metastatic HER2+ breast cancer. The Lin Lab has developed technologies to rewire abnormal signals driving tumor growth to any desired protein activity. They have recently applied these methods to engineer existing viral vectors to selectively kill cancer cells with abnormal HER2 signaling, a common cause of breast, ovarian, and gastric cancers. In this project, the Lin Lab will test these HER2-restricted vectors for the ability to target HER2+ breast cancer after systemic administration and determine whether they can synergize with anti-tumor immune responses to effectively treat metastatic cancer.