New Strategy Using Proteomics Tools, Identifies Cancer Targets Faster

A research team at Howard Hughes Medical Institute headed by Brian J. Druker has developed, in pursuit of personalized medicine, a new technique in identifying previously unknown genetic mutations that trigger growth of cancer cells.

Inside cells of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the researchers have dramatically reduced the time it takes to pinpoint molecular abnormalities that might be vulnerable to specific drug treatments by analyzing the proteins instead of the genes.

“This approach gives us a way to figure out what’s driving the growth of a cancer in an individual patient and ultimately match that patient with the right drug,” said Druker, who is based at the Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute in Portland.

Druker and his team found the method of hunting cancer genes via the DNA sequence insufficient but instead added tools from the burgeoning field of proteomics, the study of proteins.

“We decided this more functional assay would get us to the disease-causing genes more rapidly,” said Druker, who has been studying a group of cell-signaling proteins called tyrosine kinases for 20 years.

Read more at HHMI News.