Filipa Lynce, MD

Titles and Affiliations

Assistant Professor of Medicine
Director, Dana-Farber Inflammatory Breast Cancer
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation

Research Area

Developing personalized treatment approaches for patients with inflammatory breast cancer.

Impact

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer that spreads quickly. It accounts for up to 10 percent of breast cancer deaths. No specific treatments are currently approved for IBC, and current standard therapies are not effective in every patient. For her Conquer Cancer research supported by BCRF, Dr. Lynce is testing a new therapeutic approach to treat IBC by combining a HER2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate (trastuzumab deruxtecan/Enhertu®) with an immunotherapy agent (durvalumab, Imfinzi®). She and her team aim to identify biological markers that predict which patients are most likely to benefit, potentially leading to personalized treatment strategies.

What’s Next

Dr. Lynce will collect blood and tumor samples at multiple points during the TRUDI study, which is testing the drug combination in patients with IBC. She will conduct advanced analyses of these samples to investigate how and why some patients improve after treatment, while others develop resistance. Her findings could guide better treatment strategies not only for IBC but for other HER2-expressing cancers, as well.

Biography

Filipa Lynce, MD received her medical degree from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal in 2004. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Hematology and Medical Oncology at MedStar Washington Hospital Center/MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. From 2015 to 2020, she served on the faculty at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, where she was the Institutional Principal Investigator (PI) for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology and the co-PI of the National Capital Area NCORP. In 2020, Dr. Lynce joined the staff of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she is a medical oncologist and clinical investigator in the Breast Oncology Center. She also serves as Director of the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program and is a member of the Center for BRCA and Related Genes. Her research focuses on inflammatory breast cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, BRCA-associated breast cancers and the development of novel therapies for breast cancer treatment.