Funded Research
An ESUN Announcement
April 15, 2010: The Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative is pleased to announce that it is funding a 1-year $50,000 research study, "Targeting the PI3K/AKT Pathway in UPS/MFH: Aiming Towards Novel Therapy," that is being undertaken by principle investigator Quan-Sheng Zhu, MD, PhD, in the Department of Surgical Oncology at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas and his co-investigator, Dina Lev, MD in the Department of Cancer Biology at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
The funding for this grant is made possible, in part, by a very generous donation from Cliff and Arlene Blaker. Additionally, the friends and family of Ronald Rosenfeld made donations in his memory.
Here is a summary of the research study:
The lack of effective systemic therapy is the major unresolved clinical problem in UPS/MFH, and novel effective therapeutic approaches are crucially needed. The molecular diversity and intricacy of complex karyotype UPS/MFH as well as the lack of appropriate bioresources such as human specimens, cell lines, and animal models has impeded incisive insights and progress. Molecular targeted therapy has recently emerged as an effective anti-cancer treatment approach. Given the heterogeneity of UPS/MFH, identifying a common molecular deregulation amenable to therapeutic targeting would be of major importance. Several lines of evidence, including our own preliminary data, suggest a potential role for AKT deregulation in UPS/MFH progression and metastasis thereby rendering it an attractive potential therapeutic target. We wish to further evaluate the potential impact of AKT inhibition on UPS/MFH cells in vitro and in vivo. Accordingly, we propose the following aims: Aim 1: To evaluate the effect of AKT inhibition on UPS/MFH cell growth, survival, migration, and invasion. Effects of specific AKT isoforms will be tested separately; Aim 2: To examine the effect of AKT inhibition on MFH/UPS growth and metastasis in vivo.
The feasibility of these studies is significantly enhanced by the availability of a panel of recently developed human UPS/MFH cell strains and cell lines as well as by the availability of human MFH/UPS xenograft and GEM models. It is our hope that our studies will confirm the possible utility of AKT inhibitors in UPS/MFH, thereby leading to a significant positive impact on the outcome of patients suffering from this devastating disease.
You can learn more about this study in the article, "Targeting the PI3K/AKT Pathway in UPS/MFH : Aiming Towards Novel Therapy," by Quan-Sheng Zhu, MD, PhD and Dina Lev, MD which appears in the April 2010 issue of ESUN.
V7N2 ESUN Copyright © 2010 Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative