Towards taming the bugs to improve the drugs for breast cancer

The identification of microbial networks that are predictive of disease progression and response to therapy will not only increase our understanding of the connection between microbiota and breast cancer, but also pave the way for the development of novel microbiota-based therapeutic interventions. The study by Di Modica and colleagues points to the existence of specific microbiota in patients with HER2^þ breast cancer that can influence their response to trastuzumab. This information can potentially be used to develop novel therapeutic regimens combining fecal microbiota transplant with standard cancer therapy.