A new approach to the discovery of cancer therapeutics is emerging that begins with the cancer patient. Genomic analysis of primary tumors is providing an unprecedented molecular characterization of the disease. Our mission, as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2) Network, is to decode cancer genotypes so as to read out acquired pathway and oncogene addictions of the specific tumor subtypes, and to identify small molecules that target these dependencies. We are probing the consequences of these alterations on the dependencies or co-dependencies different cancers have on specific oncogenes or their interacting genes (‘oncogene addiction’ and ‘non-oncogene co-dependencies’). Cataloging these Achilles’ heels and linking them to the causal genetic alterations will be critically important for therapies that are personalized to individual patients, including combination therapies aimed at targeting multiple dependencies at once.
Specifically, the Broad CTD2 Center focuses on:
Previous work in this area included projects within the National Cancer Institute’s Initiative in Chemical Genetics (ICG).