Jan 12 2010
A $1 million grant from Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. to a world-famous
research laboratory at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s
Health Center could help save lives of cancer patients by helping
doctors more rapidly assess whether a treatment is working or not.
“Cancer biomarker tests will give
doctors clearer insights into each patient’s condition and response to
therapy, and potentially save lives by ensuring that cancer patients
receive the most effective treatment, as quickly as possible.”
The grant, awarded to the Department of Molecular Oncology directed by
Dr. Dave S.B. Hoon, will speed the search for genes and proteins that
can serve as biomarkers for several common solid tumor cancers. Even
when tumors are very small, biomarkers can alert doctors to the fact
that a cancer is spreading, or reveal the presence of cancer that can
remain after treatments such as surgery or chemotherapy--rather than
waiting until residual cells grow into a tumor large enough to be
detected by imaging.
Blood biomarkers are now known to be important and essential companion
tests in assessing any new or approved therapy. Potentially, new tumor
biomarkers could be used to develop efficient new blood tests for
monitoring cancer, similar to blood glucose tests used to monitor
diabetes, or the high sensitivity C-reactive protein test for heart
disease, Dr. Hoon explained. His department is highly regarded
internationally for discovering genetic and epigenetic biomarkers for
many types of solid tumor cancers.
The Abraxis grant covers several novel approaches for identifying new
cancer biomarkers. In the initial phase, investigators will search for
protein biomarkers in breast and prostate cancer tissues. “We will use
novel approaches including mass spectrometry to identify unique
signature biomarker proteins in the tumor, then look for the same
protein biomarker in the blood,” Dr. Hoon explained. “Hopefully, this
will lead us to specific biomarker-based blood tests that would be ideal
for all phases of cancer, including screening, staging, and monitoring
the success or failure of a particular treatment strategy.”
Abraxis Bioscience is well-known for its success in developing novel
therapeutic agents: its FDA-approved drug Abraxane is used to treat
breast cancer and is now being applied to other cancers. The new Abraxis
funding will also support the search for new epigenetic biomarkers for
pancreatic and liver cancer.
Epigenetics (meaning “above the gene”) is a relatively recent field of
biomedicine that focuses on environmental influences and other factors
that can alter the way a gene is expressed without changing its
underlying DNA sequence. Epigenetic mechanisms are now understood to
have key roles in cancer growth and spread, such as by “silencing” tumor
suppressor genes or activating genes that promote cancer cell growth.
For several years, Dr. Hoon’s lab has been focusing considerable
research attention on epigenetic alterations that could serve as
prognostic biomarkers for various cancers. Having more accurate
prognoses would help doctors choose the best treatment strategy early on.
Liver cancer is an increasing health problem in the U.S. today; rates
are climbing due to the rising incidence of hepatitis C, a main cause of
primary liver cancer. The liver cancer research at John Wayne Cancer
Institute will be performed in collaboration with Steven D. Colquhoun,
M.D., F.A.C.S., Surgical Director, Liver Transplantation at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center, Los Angeles.
“Better genetic and protein-based cancer blood biomarker tests will help
doctors more closely and accurately monitor a cancer patient’s condition
and manage it more effectively,” Dr. Hoon explained. “This is critically
important in cancer, where we want to identify which patients are
responding to therapy and which aren’t, without delay. If a patient
needs a different treatment, it makes sense to quickly switch to
something with a chance of being more effective, rather than taking a
‘watch and wait’ approach.
“For other problems such as heart disease, we have much better tests,”
Dr. Hoon continued. “Look at blood pressure and cholesterol. If test
results show that a patient is not responding to medication, we can
change that medication immediately, rather than waiting until something
bad happens--like a heart attack.
“Cancer diagnosis and therapy today still rely heavily on imaging and
observation,” Dr. Hoon concluded. “Cancer biomarker tests will give
doctors clearer insights into each patient’s condition and response to
therapy, and potentially save lives by ensuring that cancer patients
receive the most effective treatment, as quickly as possible.”
SOURCE Saint John’s Health Center
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