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news.Life Technologies is collaborating with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and US Oncology to sequence the genomes of 14 patients afflicted with triple negative breast cancer whose tumors have progressed despite multiple other therapies.
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The goal of the research collaboration is to demonstrate whether genomic sequencing of cancer tissue can provide clues for treatment strategies for these individuals.
The research study brings together the accuracy of the Applied Biosystems SOLiD System, with US Oncology’s expertise in cancer trials and TGen’s Cancer Genome and Oncology programs, to provide additional information for oncologists and their patients. Triple negative tumors, which make up nearly 20% of breast cancers, do not respond to treatment with common targeted breast cancer therapies such as Herceptin.
The SOLiD System is used in experiments to better understand the genetic nature of diseases such as cancer, diabetes and neurological disorders. It allows researchers to generate the high quality data needed for the advancement of molecular medicine.
In the collaboration, US Oncology is expected to help enroll patients in the study to have both tumor and healthy tissue sequenced using the SOLiD system to identify mutations, which will be validated by CLIA-certified Caris Life Sciences. Scientists and oncologists will then leverage this information to evaluate potential therapies that target the affected pathways responsible for the cancer.
Additionally, scientists from TGen and Life Technologies are expected to collaborate in the development of new computational and informatics software paving the way for the use of whole genomic sequencing data for querying, identifying and interpreting mutations to provide for more effective therapeutic decisions.
Daniel Von Hoff, senior investigator of TGen and chief scientific officer of US Oncology & Scottsdale Healthcare’s Virginia G Piper Cancer Center, said: “This study could provide insight into how cancers can be potentially treated in the future. Current clinical trials are aimed at showing how one new drug can be safe and effective across hundreds of people. This study flips that concept by using sequencing data from one individual to evaluate which anti-cancer drugs could be most effective based on normal and tumor genetic makeup. This is truly the definition of genomic medicine.”