Towards personalized therapy for breast cancer

Purpose of the project: Few protocols have so far been designed with attempts to characterize the systems biology of cancer. The objective of the project is to translate information obtained from integrative molecular analysis of material collected from i ndividual cancer patients, through validation of the obtained results in functional studies, into development of better and more personalized methods for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of breast cancer. R&D challenges: Efforts to characterize the sy stems biology of individual cancer patients give rise to an enormous amount of data. Efficient bioinformatics tools integrating all the experimental data and comparing the molecular profiles with the clinical information is of outmost importance for being able to draw valid conclusions. A small population of cancer stem cells has been hypothesized to initiate and sustain a tumor. Investigations of the importance of this small cell population will be performed as targeting and eradicating such slow cycling and treatment resistant cells will be essential for successful treatment. Applications: The inherent heterogeneity that characterize all malignant tumors are only partly apprehended in the parameters that at present help the clinicians decide upon diag nosis, prognosis and selection of therapy, and one fourth of all breast cancer patients experience relapse and metastatic disease. Thus, development of therapies designed to each individual patient, is highly needed. By ensuring access to matched material from the primary tumor, disseminated cells in bone marrow, micrometastatic lesions in sentinel lymph nodes and metastatic tissue, the project has a unique possibility to follow the molecular changes during tumor progression and identify possible target m olecules for utilization as diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic markers.