Advancing the Science of Personalized Cancer Medicine
Academic and industry researchers, technology developers, and clinicians discuss the progress and the challenges in the field of personalized cancer medicine.
Published December 1, 2011
By Jamie Kass
Academy Contributor
Personalized medicine, the treatment of patients based upon their individual genetic, epigenetic, and phenotypic makeup, is the ultimate goal of many researchers and clinicians trying to find less toxic and more effective therapies for cancer. While cancer as a whole is characterized by uncontrollably proliferating cells, the disease is being subdivided into increasingly smaller units, from organ-specific to gene-specific categories.
An understanding of the molecular basis of some cancers and an increasing knowledge of how those cancers differ from those in other organs and in other individuals have led to the development of drugs enormously successful at treating those types of cancer. Yet many other candidate drugs based on the same kind of analysis fail in the clinic, leaving cytotoxic chemotherapy still the standard treatment for many patients.
From May 19-21 2010, academic and industry researchers, technology developers, and clinicians from around the world gathered in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss the progress and the challenges in the field of personalized cancer medicine. A special technology workshop highlighted the important role of technological advances in driving the efforts toward personalized medicine. Conference participants also discussed their concerns about the field, in particular the failure of the U.S. clinical trial system to keep up with the changes demanded by the new approach.
Researchers have made great progress in discovering the cellular processes that have become pathological in cancer. For example, it is clear that genetic and epigenetic changes that affect cell proliferation, DNA repair, programmed cell death, stem cell maturation or self-renewal, and other fundamental cellular and molecular activities can lead to cancer formation.
Systemic Problems, Clinical Medicine, and Technology
New information is also coming to light about more systemic problems, such as the survival of cancer cells in different microenvironments, the cells’ ability to stimulate angiogenesis, and the way they promote their own survival by interacting with noncancerous cells to acquire nutrients, suppress immune response, and meet other important needs. The most cutting-edge research in all of these areas was discussed by leading researchers in the field.
Moving toward clinical medicine, researchers discussed how oncogenomics and tumor profiling can reveal the signaling pathways mutated in a particular tumor type as well as the variability among tumors within that type. Breast cancer researchers are at the forefront of efforts to use gene expression signatures and other molecular data to guide treatment, predict risk, and understand epidemiological phenomena. There are several clinical trials underway to test some of these new tools, some of which were presented in talks about efforts to identify biomarkers for prognosis and treatment response.
The conference also delved into a variety of approaches to developing targeted therapies for cancer. Some of these efforts take advantage of technologies that allow high-throughput analyses of genomic information and drug responses in cell culture. Others use preclinical mouse models to evaluate candidate target therapies or to counteract the drug resistance that often thwarts cancer treatment. Next-generation sequencing and microarray technology have also played an important part in the advance toward personalized cancer medicine, as a technology workshop highlighted.
Also read: Advancing Cancer Research and Therapies
