Titles and Affiliations
Attending Physician, Breast Medical Oncology
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation
Research area
Investigating combination therapy for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
Impact
PARP inhibitors are oral targeted therapies approved for patients with metastatic breast cancer caused by an inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. However, these mutations account for only about 5% of metastatic breast cancer cases, limiting how many patients can benefit from this treatment. Dr. Vidula’s prior research found that some tumors acquire BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations on their own, without an inherited mutation, and may respond to treatment in a similar way. For her Conquer Cancer research supported by BCRF, she is leading a clinical trial (NCT03990896) testing the PARP inhibitor talazoparib (Talzenna®) in patients with these tumor-acquired mutations, with the goal of expanding this therapy to more patients.
What’s next
Dr. Vidula’s team will study how the amount of mutant BRCA1 or BRCA2 DNA circulating in the blood changes over the course of treatment, using blood samples collected before treatment, every four weeks during treatment, and at the time of disease progression. They will look at whether patients already carry genetic changes before treatment that could make the drug less effective, including changes that restore normal BRCA1 or BRCA2 function and allow cancer cells to survive treatment. They will also compare blood samples taken before and after treatment to identify new genetic changes that emerge over time and help cancer cells resist the drug. This research aims to uncover new targets to overcome resistance to talazoparib, laying the groundwork for future combination treatment strategies.
Biography
Neelima Vidula, MD is a breast medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. Dr. Vidula completed medical school and residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL., and a clinical and research fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the University of California San Francisco in San Francisco, CA.
Dr. Vidula is the principal investigator of many early phase clinical trials studying novel agents for patients with breast cancer. As part of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium, she leads several national investigator-initiated clinical trials exploring immunotherapy and chemotherapy for breast cancer with chest wall disease. She developed the Breast Cancer with Chest Wall Disease Comprehensive Program at MGH, which involves a multidisciplinary clinic for patients with chest wall disease, as well as an accompanying clinical and translational research program. Dr. Vidula is also the lead on another investigator-initiated clinical trial evaluating a PARP inhibitor in somatic BRCA mutant metastatic breast cancer, funded by a prior Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO – Breast Cancer Research Foundation – Career Development Award and Pfizer ASPIRE award. Dr. Vidula also performs clinical research evaluating the impact of biomarkers on therapy response and patient outcomes and conducts research in precision medicine using cell-free DNA and tumor tissue genotyping. She has presented her research at several national and international meetings and published many articles in high-impact journals.
