Project description:Identifying therapeutic targets in rare cancers remains challenging due to the paucity of established models to perform preclinical studies. As a proof-of-concept, we developed a patient-derived cancer cell line, CLF-PED-015-T, from a paediatric patient with a rare undifferentiated sarcoma. Here, we confirm that this cell line recapitulates the histology and harbours the majority of the somatic genetic alterations found in a metastatic lesion isolated at first relapse. We then perform pooled CRISPR-Cas9 and RNAi loss-of-function screens and a small-molecule screen focused on druggable cancer targets. Integrating these three complementary and orthogonal methods, we identify CDK4 and XPO1 as potential therapeutic targets in this cancer, which has no known alterations in these genes. These observations establish an approach that integrates new patient-derived models, functional genomics and chemical screens to facilitate the discovery of targets in rare cancers.
Project description:<p>Due to the paucity of patient derived models in rare cancers, identification of therapeutic targets remains challenging. We developed a patient derived model, CLF-PED-015-T, from a patient with an undifferentiated sarcoma. From this model, we performed pooled RNAi and CRISPR-Cas9 negative selection screens and integrated that with a small molecule screen. Integration of these data identified CDK4 and XPO1 as potential therapeutic targets.</p>
Project description:Genomic analysis of many cancers has led to the identification of novel targets and the development of personalized, targeted therapies. Unfortunately, in the majority of rare tumors, this type of analysis can be particularly challenging. Large series of specimens for analysis are simply not available, allowing recurring patterns to remain hidden. Clinical specimens typically contain variable degrees of non-tumor cells that can mask a potentially critical genomic signature, leaving important clinically relevant events undetected. When analysis is limited to a smaller number of specimens, the effects of heterogeneity within each sample is magnified. In light of these challenges, we used DNA content based flow cytometry to isolate clonal tumor populations from a series of rare cancers for genomic analysis: intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, anal carcinoma, adrenal leiomyosarcoma, and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. These purified clonal populations are then subject to high definition measurement of copy number aberrations by objectively measuring the height and boundaries of amplicons and by discriminating homozygous from partial deletions. Ranking of these events by copy number facilitates the identification of highly selected aberrations. This approach can garner useful information from a single biopsy. In the cases we describe, several potential therapeutic targets were identified and genomic aberrations correlated with the phenotypic behavior. We propose that clonal genomic analysis can generate unique hypotheses and guide the development of clinical advances for these and other rare tumors. We applied DNA content based flow sorting to isolate the nuclei of clonal populations from tumor biopsies. We coupled this strategy with oligonucleotide array CGH (aCGH) thereby obtaining high definition genomic profiles of clonal populations from different rare tumors including pancreatic neuroendocrine cancers, adrenal leiomyosarcoma, anal carcinoma, and cholangiocarcinoma.
Project description:This is a randomized open-label multicentre Phase III superiority study of the effect of adding SBRT to the standard of care treatment on overall survival in patients with rare oligometastatic cancers.
Patients will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio between current standard of care treatment vs. standard of care treatment + SBRT to all sites of known metastatic disease.
The primary objective of this trial is to assess if the addition of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) to standard of care treatment improves overall survival (OS) as compared to standard of care treatment alone in patients with rare oligometastatic cancers.
Project description:Pharmacologic inhibition of BAF chromatin remodeling complexes as a therapeutic approach to transcription factor-dependent cancers [WES]
Project description:Genomic analysis of many cancers has led to the identification of novel targets and the development of personalized, targeted therapies. Unfortunately, in the majority of rare tumors, this type of analysis can be particularly challenging. Large series of specimens for analysis are simply not available, allowing recurring patterns to remain hidden. Clinical specimens typically contain variable degrees of non-tumor cells that can mask a potentially critical genomic signature, leaving important clinically relevant events undetected. When analysis is limited to a smaller number of specimens, the effects of heterogeneity within each sample is magnified. In light of these challenges, we used DNA content based flow cytometry to isolate clonal tumor populations from a series of rare cancers for genomic analysis: intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, anal carcinoma, adrenal leiomyosarcoma, and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. These purified clonal populations are then subject to high definition measurement of copy number aberrations by objectively measuring the height and boundaries of amplicons and by discriminating homozygous from partial deletions. Ranking of these events by copy number facilitates the identification of highly selected aberrations. This approach can garner useful information from a single biopsy. In the cases we describe, several potential therapeutic targets were identified and genomic aberrations correlated with the phenotypic behavior. We propose that clonal genomic analysis can generate unique hypotheses and guide the development of clinical advances for these and other rare tumors.