The completion of the human genome project in April 2003 engendered a new era of cancer treatment known as targeted therapy. The traditional treatment options until very recently were chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Gene- or biological pathway-specific targeted therapies have not yet evolved as a stand alone treatment, but they do boost the efficacy of the traditional cancer treatment methods.
Unlike traditional chemotherapy drugs, which are sub-lethal doses of cytotoxic compounds that indiscriminately kill cancer cells and healthy cells, targeted therapies are drugs that target defective genes or pathways that are specific to cancer cells. Some of these genes are defective in all human cancers, p53 and RB, for example. Others are prevalent in specific types of cancer: APC (colon), HER2 (breast), FLT3 (myeloid leukemia), HPC1 (prostate), EGFR (lung), etc. Targeted therapies tend to hone in on just their intended target, Iressa (aka Gefinitib) targets EGFR, a growth factor receptor that is defective in some cancers, for example.
Although much has yet to be learned about the intricacies of the human genome as it relates to cancer, physicians are frequently adding new targeted therapy drugs to their panoply as they clear clinical trials and become available. At the same time, medical research scientists are discovering new genetic defects that either lead to cancer, lead to the development of new targeted therapies, predict drug efficacy, and/or better predict clinical outcomes.
As a translational research facility, our mission is to take drug discoveries from bench top to bedside. To accomplish this mission, our medical research laboratory is divided into 3 functional areas:
The laboratory uses many different machines to help unlock the secrets of genetics and cancer. Without them, current research might be impossible.