Career Summary:  Dr. Hurvitz is Assistant Professor of hematology/Oncology at UCLA and a researcher at JCCC. She received her M.D. in 1999 from USC. She did her internship and residency at UCLA and was named Chief Resident in 2002. During her postdoctoral fellowship in hematology/oncology, she did lymphoma research, then shifted her focus to breast cancer.

Year STOP CANCER Award was received:  2008–11 Marni Levine Breast Cancer Research Award

 

Description of research performed:  As a practicing physician, Dr. Hurvitz is conducting clinical trials in breast cancer treatment. In 2007, she designed and developed the TRIO B07 study to better understand why some HER2+ breast cancers do not respond to HER2-targeted therapy and to try to understand if there are biological markers (such as proteins) that could be identified to select patients who are most likely to respond to this therapy. In this phase II clinical trial, 130 patients with early stage HER2+ breast cancer were voluntarily enrolled from UCLA and UCLA-affiliated sites (through her Translational Research in Oncology (TRIO) network) and randomly assigned to receive chemotherapy with either trastuzumab or with a newer HER2 targeted agent, lapatinib, or with both agents. In December 2012, Dr. Hurvitz completed accrual to this study and is now in the process of evaluating the clinical data.  

Results of research:  Dr. Hurvitz's long-term goal is to increase the measurable cure rate for Stage IV breast cancer from 2-3 to more than 10 percent.