Improving Outcomes for Molecularly Defined High Risk Breast Cancer Subgroups
With generous support from B-Search and building on our landmark discovery of 11 molecular defined subgroups of breast cancer with distinct genomic ‘drivers’ and risks of recurrence (Nature 2019, Nature 2012), we are developing innovative strategies to diagnose, treat and monitor patients at highest risk of disease progression. Towards this goal, we have established an end-to-end clinical- translational research platform that harnesses state-of-the-art experimental and computational methods, spanning patient avatars (organoids) and computer algorithms, to learn and exploit the unique biology that underpins high-risk of recurrence breast cancers for therapeutic benefit.
These scientific discoveries, coupled with the infrastructure we have built uniquely position our team to address several of the most pressing challenges in breast oncology. Specifically, we seek to develop and deploy new diagnostics and decision support tools so that all breast cancer patients can receive personalized treatment and monitoring guided by the molecular features of their tumor. We are grateful to partner with B-search to pursue this bold mission at warp speed.
Over the next year we will expand these efforts with several major milestones anticipated as well as new directions:
We will complete our Phase IB biomarker stratified clinical trial in high-risk metastatic patients and perform detailed molecular characterization of these patient samples
Through multiple national and international leadership roles, including as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Association for Cancer Research and an advisor to pharma/biotech, I will champion personalized approaches for breast and other cancers by bringing together key stakeholders across the research, clinical, regulatory, pharmaceutical and advocacy sectors. Breast cancer will be the archetype from which others follow and I am grateful to have this platform at this critical point in time.
With generous support from B-Search and building on our landmark discovery of 11 molecular defined subgroups of breast cancer with distinct genomic ‘drivers’ and risks of recurrence (Nature 2019, Nature 2012), we are developing innovative strategies to diagnose, treat and monitor patients at highest risk of disease progression. Towards this goal, we have established an end-to-end clinical- translational research platform that harnesses state-of-the-art experimental and computational methods, spanning patient avatars (organoids) and computer algorithms, to learn and exploit the unique biology that underpins high-risk of recurrence breast cancers for therapeutic benefit.
These scientific discoveries, coupled with the infrastructure we have built uniquely position our team to address several of the most pressing challenges in breast oncology. Specifically, we seek to develop and deploy new diagnostics and decision support tools so that all breast cancer patients can receive personalized treatment and monitoring guided by the molecular features of their tumor. We are grateful to partner with B-search to pursue this bold mission at warp speed.
Over the next year we will expand these efforts with several major milestones anticipated as well as new directions:
We will complete our Phase IB biomarker stratified clinical trial in high-risk metastatic patients and perform detailed molecular characterization of these patient samples
- We will launch our Phase II window-of-opportunity clinical trial to evaluate novel therapeutic strategies in early stage, high-risk of relapse ER+/Her2- patients and to deeply characterize their tumor tissue and blood before and after therapy. This first in kind trial advances comprehensive biomarkers in newly diagnosed patients and will be pivotal for the field.
- We will expand our biobank of breast cancer patient-derived organoid (PDO) models (40 generated to date) to evaluate the efficacy of established and novel therapeutic agents. Here we leverage the Phase II trial to enrich for patient specimens and organoids representative of the 25% of high-risk of relapse patients for which representative models are urgently needed.
- We will harness our growing collection of longitudinal biospecimens from breast cancer patients to develop and evaluate novel methods to monitor and detect recurrence.
- We will validate our suite of predictive biomarkers spanning all subgroups of breast cancer in clinical cohorts to enable the translation of these new diagnostic methods.
Through multiple national and international leadership roles, including as a member of the Board of Directors for the American Association for Cancer Research and an advisor to pharma/biotech, I will champion personalized approaches for breast and other cancers by bringing together key stakeholders across the research, clinical, regulatory, pharmaceutical and advocacy sectors. Breast cancer will be the archetype from which others follow and I am grateful to have this platform at this critical point in time.
| b-search_june_2022.pdf |
