Understand
Understand Recanthia, no science degree needed.
Breast cancer, immunotherapy, genes and “master regulators”: the essentials in six steps, in plain words.
Breast cancer is not a single disease.
In France, one woman in eight will be affected during her lifetime [Ameli]. There were 61,214 new cases in 2023 [INCa].
Doctors classify breast cancers by what tumour cells carry on their surface: hormone receptors, or a protein called HER2. These “labels” guide treatment: hormone therapy, or drugs that target HER2.
Triple-negative breast cancer carries none of these three labels, so those targeted treatments do not work. It accounts for about 15% of breast cancers and often affects young women [Institut Curie].
Immunotherapy: releasing the immune system’s brake.
Our immune system can recognise and destroy cancer cells. But tumours can “press a brake” that stops it from acting.
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) releases that brake. In high-risk early triple-negative disease, it is combined with chemotherapy before and after surgery; the French health authority HAS assessed it in late 2022 [HAS].
The problem: nearly 40% of patients do not achieve a complete response [EMA], while the treatment is heavy, can have lasting side effects and costs about €64,000 more per patient. Today, no validated test can tell in advance who will benefit.
Genes: the cell’s recipe book.
Every cell holds the same recipe book: our genes, about 20,000 of them. But a cell does not use every recipe at once. A skin cell and a breast cell read different pages.
When a cell uses a recipe, it makes working copies: RNA. By measuring the RNA in a tumour sample (RNA sequencing), we can see which recipes the tumour is using.
The result is huge: thousands of values for each patient. Hard to read a simple answer from it directly.
Master regulators: the conductors.
Some genes do not build “parts” of the cell: they control other genes, sometimes hundreds. They are called master regulators.
As in an orchestra, watching a few conductors tells you what all the musicians are playing. Observing the activity of a small number of master regulators summarises the state of the tumour in a way that is more stable and easier to interpret than thousands of genes taken one by one.
A signature is a combination of these conductors whose activity is linked to an outcome: here, response to treatment.
What Recanthia does.
From the RNA of a biopsy, our platform BRCA.cRegMap, developed at CRCLille, estimates master-regulator activity and searches for the signature linked to response to pembrolizumab.
For industry, from 2027: understand why some tumours resist, find combination leads and evaluate drugs in development.
For patients, tomorrow: help doctors choose, before treating, the most suitable treatment. The right treatment, the right dose, for every patient.
What it is not (yet).
Recanthia is a research project. Our signature is not a test available to patients: it must first be validated in independent cohorts and clinical studies, then approved.
If you are affected by breast cancer, never change your treatment based on this website: talk to your oncologist.
Glossary
- Biopsy
- A small sample of the tumour taken for diagnosis.
- Complete pathological response
- No cancer cells left in the tumour removed at surgery after treatment.
- HER2
- A protein present in excess on the surface of some breast tumours.
- Immunotherapy
- A treatment that helps the immune system attack cancer.
- Master regulator
- A gene that controls the activity of many other genes.
- Pembrolizumab
- An immunotherapy drug (Keytruda) that releases a brake on the immune system.
- RNA
- A working copy of a gene, made when the cell uses it.
- Signature
- A combination of measurements linked to an outcome, such as treatment response.
- Triple-negative
- Breast cancer without hormone receptors or excess HER2.