Targeted treatments and immunotherapies for breast cancer – January 2025

This course is ideal for research nurses, clinical nurse specialists, pharmacists, clinical trials and other staff who already have some knowledge of the different types of breast cancers.

Delivered over two morning sessions, Dr Elaine Vickers – a leading independent educator on the science of new cancer treatments – will guide you through many of the most relevant topics relating to modern systemic treatments for breast cancer.

Elaine will firstly explain why cancer arises and look at the different ways that the DNA in our cells gets damaged. She’ll also look at the types of damage found in breast cancer cells and explain why we only have targeted treatments that match a few of the mutations we find.

Elaine will then explain the science behind hormone therapies, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies given to patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-positive, and triple-negative breast cancer.

Audience

This Introducing Targeted Treatments and Immunotherapies for Breast Cancer course is ideal for research nurses, clinical nurse specialists, pharmacists and clinical trials staff who are already working with and have some knowledge of treatments for breast cancer. It may also be of interest to other healthcare professionals involved in the diagnosis and treatment of people with breast cancer.

As ever, Elaine will use colourful illustrations and jargon-free explanations to help learners gain a broad understanding of the concepts covered.

Programme

Session One: Wednesday 29 January, 1.30pm – 3.30pm

1. Introduction to breast cancer

• How and why breast cancer arises
• Common mutations in breast cancer cells
• How, when and why breast cancer sometimes spreads

2. Treatments for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer

• Hormone receptors in breast cancer
• Treatments that target hormone receptors, old and new
• CDK4/6 inhibitors (palbociclib, ribociclib, abemaciclib)
• PI3K-alpha and AKT inhibitors (e.g., alpelisib, capivasertib)

Session Two: Wednesday 5 February, 1.30pm – 3.30pm

3. Treatments for HER2-positive breast cancer

• The treatments we use to block HER2:
  • Antibody-based treatments – trastuzumab, pertuzumab, margetuximab,
    trastuzumab emtansine, trastuzumab deruxtecan
  • Small molecule kinase inhibitors – lapatinib, neratinib, tucatinib
• Expanding the definition of “HER2-positive”

4. Treatments for triple-negative breast cancer

• Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors (e.g. pembrolizumab, atezolizumab)
• An antibody-drug conjugate – sacituzumab govitecan
• PARP inhibitors for BRCA-mutated breast cancer (e.g. olaparib, talazoparib)
• Trastuzumab deruxtecan for HER2-low TNBC

Course Lead

Dr Elaine Vickers, PhD of Science Communicated Ltd has worked as a cancer educator for over twenty years and has previously acted as science communicator for three of the UK’s leading medical research charities, including four years in the Science Information team at Cancer Research UK.

Elaine is passionate about demystifying the science behind cancer biology and the latest cancer treatments such as kinase inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies and immunotherapies.

She is experienced in teaching people with any level of scientific or medical knowledge from cancer patients through to medical oncologists translating complex and often overwhelming topics into easily digestible and understandable knowledge, using colourful illustrations to explain scientific concepts.

The second edition of her book, A Beginner’s Guide to Targeted Cancer Treatments and Cancer Immunotherapy – commended by the British Medical Association book awards – is due out at the end of 2024.

Payment

Payments should where possible be made via the online booking system.

If you request an invoice at the point of booking, invoice payment terms are strictly 30 days from the invoice date or 7 days before the start of the event, or the date specified on the course booking page – whichever date is the earliest.

Cancellation and refunds policy

Should you no longer be able to attend the event on the booked date, please contact the Academy as we may be able to offer an alternative date subject to an admin charge.

Should you still wish to cancel your booking, you or your employer will be charged as per the fees outlined below.

If you do not attend on the day, you will be charged the full cost of the event place.

See our Terms & Conditions and Cancellations & Refunds pages for more details.

Booking

To book a place on this course go to Tickets at the bottom of the page.

At checkout you can make an online card payment or enter a coupon code to make alternative payment arrangements.

Alternative payment arrangements include:

• requesting an invoice (INVOICE),
• The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust staff internal funding (NUTH) – you will need to complete a Trust study leave form.

Please see the Making payments & Coupons sections of the Help and FAQs.