$600K Foundation Grant to Fund Cancer Genomics Research

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The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) has awarded a $600,000 grant to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix and the University of Arizona in Tucson for the study of targeted cancer therapies. The three-year grant will enable TGen and the university to continue its NFCR Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies, created in 2002 for new therapies to treat pancreatic cancer.

Traditional chemotherapeutic drugs can impair cell division — the underlying process of tumor development — in a general way, but targeted therapies specifically kill cancer cells and leave normal cells unharmed, which results in greater cancer-killing power and fewer side effects. “The overall objective of the research,” says Arizona medicinal chemist Laurence Hurley, “is to design and develop novel anti-tumor agents that will extend the productive lives of patients who have cancer.”

One specific area of research at the NFCR Center focuses on agents that target the mutated K-Ras gene, which signals cancer cells to proliferate, migrate and survive. Mutations in the K-Ras gene that cause K-Ras proteins to be constantly activated are found in more than 95 percent of pancreatic cancers, the nation’s fourth leading cause of cancer death.

Daniel Von Hoff, TGen’s head physician, and Hurley have identified compounds that in lab tests inhibit growth of pancreatic cancer cell lines expressing the mutant K-Ras gene. They hope to advance three new candidate compounds over the next three years. “The NFCR grant is enabling us to go after a key gene that is the most common abnormal gene in pancreatic cancer,” says Van Hoff. “We want to target that gene.”

The Center also uses computational methods to extract genomics and pathway information from cancer cells and match each patient with the most effective treatment option available.

Read more:

• Genomics Testing Offered to Guide Cancer Treatments
• Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women’s Establish Genomic Database

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