Targeting Cancer

In the largest study of its kind, researchers have profiled genetic changes in cancer with drug sensitivity in order to develop a personalised approach to cancer treatments. The study is published in Nature on Thursday 29 March 2012.

The team uncovered hundreds of associations between mutations in cancer genes and sensitivity to anticancer drugs. One of the key responses the team found was that cells from a childhood bone cancer, Ewing’s sarcoma, respond to a drug that is currently used in the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers. The lowered toxicity of this treatment may mean it is a safer alternative therapy for children and young adults with this aggressive cancer. There is an intimate relationship between the way a drug works and the genetic changes present in cancers. This study found that sensitivity to most anti-cancer drugs is influenced by mutations in cancer genes and establishes the utility of using large-scale studies to identify these associations and build them into improved patient treatment.

In a report that appears in the journal Nature as an advanced online publication, researchers describe one of the first studies to demonstrate the value of “co-clinical” trials, in which drugs targeting cancers with specific genetic mutations are tested simultaneously in patients and in lab animals with the same type of tumor. The arrangement enables investigators to use information from the animal studies to predict how specific patients will respond to the drugs, and to design follow-up trials in which the drugs undergo more extensive testing in patients. The Nature paper focused on non-small cell lung cancers that carry a mutation in the gene Kras. By conducting a mouse study that paralleled a human clinical trial, researchers found that a two-drug therapy shrank lung cancer tumors in mice with one set of mutations but not another. The findings may help scientists understand why some human patients respond to the drugs while others don’t.

SALT LAKE CITY—Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah report they have discovered a method to identify cancer-causing rearrangements of genetic material called chromosomal translocations quickly, accurately, and inexpensively. A description of the method and the research results appear online in this month’s issue of the EMBO Molecular Medicine journal. continue reading »

Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have identified new ways of delivering personalized cancer treatments in a more cost-effective manner, allowing more patients to benefit from this revolution. continue reading »