UCLA Oncologist Honored For Inventing Breast Cancer Drug

LOS ANGELES, CA — UCLA oncologist Dr. Dennis Slamon will be among the recipients of the 2019 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for the invention of the breast cancer drug Herceptin, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced Monday.

Herceptin is the first monoclonal antibody that blocks a cancer- causing protein, according to the foundation.

Slamon, the chief of hematology/oncology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, will receive the award Sept. 20 in New York with fellow American H. Michael Shepard and Axel Ullrich of Germany's Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. They will equally split the $250,000 prize that comes with the award.

Slamon first identified the aggressive subtype of breast cancer known as HER2-positive in the early 1980s, then proved the theory that if researchers could identify the damage in a cancer cell compared to a normal cell, researchers "could attempt to target and treat it specifically" without damaging a normal cell, according to Denise Heady of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"There were a lot of preconceived notions that this approach couldn't work because prior antibody therapies in cancer had failed," said Slamon, who is also the director of clinical and translational research at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"However, we had clear data to back us up and we really stuck to pursuing it. I grew up being told that I was only limited by my own ability. That always stayed with me. You have to be very careful and critical of your data, but if it looks correct, believe it and chase it despite what others may think."

Slamon performed his first human clinical trial on 20 woman at UCLA in 1990, when women with HER2-positive had an average life expectancy of three to five years after diagnosis.

Depending on a patient's stage of diagnosis, women with HER2-positive now average seven to 10 years of disease-free survival and at least 2.7 million woman around the world have been treated with Herceptin, Heady said.

"Dr. Slamon's discoveries have revolutionized cancer care," said Dr. Michael Teitell, director of the Jonsson Cancer Center. "I can't overstate how significant his scientific achievements are to the field of oncology. I admire him for his tenacity, drive and devotion to find more effective ways to treat people with cancer."

Slamon graduated with honors in 1975 from the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine and completed his internship and residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics before coming to UCLA in 1978.

This is the second consecutive year a UCLA scientist has won a Lasker Award. Michael Grunstein, a distinguished professor of biological chemistry at the Geffen School of Medicine, was awarded the 2018 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his groundbreaking research on gene expression.

The Lasker Awards program was created in 1945 by philanthropists Albert and Mary Lasker to shine a spotlight on fundamental biological discoveries and clinical advances that improve human health and to draw attention to the importance of public support of science.

City News Service