Kayla Hernandez-Zirofsky

Breast Cancer is an extremely lethal type of cancer, especially for the female population. Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2) is a very aggressive type of Breast Cancer and is not responsive to hormone therapies. Due to this, targeted drug therapies have been created to reduce the amount of HER2 proteins in the tumor so that it is far more manageable with a closer-to-average rate of proliferation. The goal of this research is too test a construct that works to destabilize the mRNA of HER2 proteins. The hypothesis states that the construct will be efficient in lowering the levels of HER2 in the tumor tissue as a result of this destabilization. In order to prove this, tissue samples from mouse breast tumors are taken and treated with the construct. The Immunohistochemistry procedure is then applied to image for the levels of HER2 present in the tissue after the treatment process. Though the results of this experiment are not available, assuming that the construct is proven efficient, this could have significant ramifications for HER2 Breast Cancer treatments moving forward.