Source: www.genomeweb.com
Author: staff

The National Institutes of Health this month awarded MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers a four-year grant to bioinformatically and functionally investigate genomic alterations as novel therapeutic targets for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

In recent years, genomic studies have identified numerous genetic alterations in HNSCC, but such alterations “are dominated by tumor suppressor genes and untargetable oncogenes,” MD Anderson’s Jeffrey Myers, who is leading the research, wrote in the grant’s abstract. “Nevertheless, we hypothesize that novel molecular therapeutic targets are present in HNSCC and that these targets exist in parts of the data that have not been effectively analyzed.”

With the support of the NIH grant, administered by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research and worth $971,667 in its first year, Myers and his colleagues plan to examine existing genomic data using a combination of computational and functional approaches to identify candidate drug targets.

The most promising targets will be tested in a high-throughput in vivo screening system in HNSCC lines with known genotypes, with validated targets further tested for genotype co-dependencies. Known drug targets will be studied in preclinical xenograft models.

For targets that are currently undruggable, the researchers will computationally and experimentally analyze their pathways for additional targets that can be functionally tested.

Through the work, the MD Anderson investigators aim to generate a broad list of functionally validated novel targets for HNSCC as candidates for drug development.