untitled 786 | CANCER DISCOVERY�AUGUST 2015 www.aacrjournals.org NEWS IN BRIEF Precision Medicine Path for Prostate Cancer A mainstay of metastatic prostate cancer treatment is the suppression of hormones that fuel tumor cells. How- ever, almost all men with advanced prostate cancer develop resistance to these androgen-depleting therapies. Recently, researchers showed that nearly 90% of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) have a genetic alteration that could be targeted by other clini- cal treatments. The fi ndings suggest individualized approaches for these patients (Cell 2015;161:1215–28). “This will have a major impact on how we move forward in [treating] this disease,” says Johann de Bono, MD, a principal investigator in the study and head of the Division of Clinical Stud- ies at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK. “Ninety-nine percent of our trials involve no patient prese- lection. With this information, we can now subdivide these patients, as we’ve done with breast and lung cancers.” In this fi rst multicenter, inter- national clinical trial, researchers conducted whole-exome and transcrip- tome sequencing of bone or soft-tissue biopsy samples from 150 patients living with mCRPC. Results showed that 62.7% of the patients who had a genetic alteration had androgen recep- tor mutations, a fi nding in line with current understanding of the disease. More compelling, researchers found that of the nearly 90% of patients with genetic alterations, 65% had anoma- lies (other than androgen receptor mutations) that could be targeted by investigational or FDA-approved drugs currently used for other cancers. Among these alterations, almost 23% occurred in DNA repair pathways. For instance, some tumors had BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, which, in ovarian and breast cancers, have shown sensi- tivity to PARP inhibitors, drugs that interfere with DNA repair and prevent tumor cells from dividing. In addition, researchers mapped more than a half dozen previously unknown genetic changes, such as mutations in the Wnt signaling pathway, which leads to regulation of cell development and migration, and a PIK3CB mutation with cancer-activating effects similar to PIK3CA. They also found that 8% of patients with mCRPC had germline mutations. “This is a very important study on a number of fronts,” says Karen Knudsen, PhD, director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, who was not involved in the study. “It’s the fi rst large study looking at the incurable stage of the disease, where the unmet clinical need is. The large cohort gives us confi dence and a much clearer picture of the drivers of disease, and they’ve uncovered new potential drivers that are targetable.” When the study is completed, research- ers will have mapped and sequenced the tumors of 500 patients with mCRPC. Amassing such data, says de Bono, will lead to more targeted—and more afford- able—sequencing. “It will be critical to follow up with clinical trials that correlate clinical outcomes with molecular alterations,” says Arul M. Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, a senior author on the study and direc- tor of the Michigan Center for Trans- lational Pathology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “The longer- term goal is to have this information ahead of time and be able to direct patients in a more precise way to the best therapy.” ■ Cellular Backpackers Deliver Lymphoma Drugs Researchers have developed a new technique that enlists T cells to ferry chemotherapy drugs into tumors and that improves the effi ciency of drug delivery. Cancer cells can elude chemo- therapy by hiding out in lymph nodes and other protected locations. Even if a small amount of drug makes it to these refuges, it may not permeate the tissue to reach the tumor cells inside. Researchers have tried to overcome these problems by having nanoparti- cles transport chemotherapy drugs, but not all tumors have the leaky blood vessels that enable the particles to leave the bloodstream and disperse into the tumor. PEOPLE Karen E. Knudsen, PhD, has been named director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, as well as chair of its department of cancer biology. She has been serving in these roles on an interim basis since January. An expert in the molecular basis of hormone-dependent prostate cancer, Knudsen aims to prevent and treat the disease. Her studies that identify tumor suppressor and hormone-receptor alter- ations have uncovered new targets for treating advanced disease and have led to innovative, biomarker-driven clinical trials. In addition, she is editor-in-chief of Molecular Cancer Research. Rolf Apweiler, PhD, and Ewan Birney, PhD, have been appointed joint directors of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory— European Bioinfor- matics Institute (EMBL-EBI), effective July 1. The European hub for big data in biol- ogy, EMBL-EBI is based on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton, UK. As part of EMBL, the institute collects, annotates, archives, and shares data from publicly funded life-science experiments with the global scientific community. Apweiler and Birney will continue to lead their respec- tive research groups. Apweiler is involved in many internal col- laborations and initiatives, including the Human Proteome Organization Proteomics Standards Initiative. He has served on the editorial and advisory boards of several journals, and he has published more than 250 papers and book chapters. Birney played a vital role in annotating the genome sequences of the human, mouse, and other organisms. He led the analysis group for the ENCODE project. His inter- ests include functional genomics and statisti- cal methods to analyze genomic information. E M B L -E B I E M B L -E B I Rolf Apweiler, PhD Ewan Birney, PhD on April 5, 2021. © 2015 American Association for Cancer Research. cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org Downloaded from http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/ 2015;5:786. Cancer Discovery People Updated version http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/5/8/786.1 Access the most recent version of this article at: E-mail alerts related to this article or journal.Sign up to receive free email-alerts Subscriptions Reprints and .pubs@aacr.org To order reprints of this article or to subscribe to the journal, contact the AACR Publications Department at Permissions Rightslink site. Click on "Request Permissions" which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center's (CCC) .http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/5/8/786.1 To request permission to re-use all or part of this article, use this link on April 5, 2021. © 2015 American Association for Cancer Research. cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org Downloaded from http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/5/8/786.1 http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/cgi/alerts mailto:pubs@aacr.org http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/5/8/786.1 http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/