MFWN Funded Research
Contributions to The Noreen Fraser Foundation support state-of the-art research in
The Women’s Cancer Research Program at UCLA.
At UCLA, the process of linking laboratory research with clinical applications helped lead to the development of Herceptin, the first FDA approved cancer drug directed against a specific molecular alteration with a direct role in causing about 25 percent of all breast cancers. This pioneering work for breast cancer has helped prove the principle underlying the theory of targeted therapies. Namely, once the molecular malfunction causing cancer cells to proliferate is identified and understood, it can be attacked and corrected without destroying healthy cells. The goal now is to develop more and better targeted treatments for breast and ovarian cancers, as well as those that develop resistance to the best targeted therapies.
The Women’s Cancer Research Program at UCLA has invested in an integrated research facility featuring a range of technologies such as microarray, genome analysis, flow cytometry, high throughput cell culture analysis, and analytical response instrumentation. These tools are revolutionizing the way that pre-clinical research is conducted. Individually, they allow scientists to isolate and examine various aspects of the genetic mutations that cause cancer. Together, this core infrastructure represents a coordinated and cost-effective translational research platform.
Despite the advances noted above, some 40,000 women lose their battles with breast cancer each year in the U.S. alone. That is because all breast cancers are not alike, and outcomes for standard one-size-fits-all chemotherapy regimens vary widely. In fact, malignancies in the breast can be divided into at least seven identifiable genetic sub-types, all of which can be fatal if they spread from the primary location in the breast to other parts of the body. This process of spreading to other organs is called metastasis. Ultimately, the ability to treat allbreast cancer sub-types successfully depends on how precisely researchers are able tocharacterize and distinguish them molecularly so that metastasis can be prevented or halted. At UCLA, researchers are working to identify and thwart the defining molecular mechanisms that foster metastasic disease across all breast cancer sub-types.
Epithelial malignancies of the ovary constitute the number one killer of women with gynecologic malignancies in the United States today. This is a disease in desperate need of new, innovative and more effective therapeutic strategies. Consistent with the translational cancer research approach in breast cancer, a cohort of hundreds of clinical ovarian tumor samples collected from 1989 – 2005 has been molecularly dissected. Results indicate that while all of these tissues are malignant, their molecular”fingerprints” can be grouped into a handful of specific subtypes. Each subtype reflects different identifiable cell signaling pathways causing the tumor’s growth. Just like in breast cancer, better treatments for ovarian cancer will be developed when their molecular subtypes are characterized and distinguished more effectively.
Funding from the Noreen Fraser Foundation supports the following multi-step process of developing more effective, less toxic treatments for breast and ovarian cancers. First, basic scientists identify additional genetic targets. New and better drugs are then screened against those targets both in the laboratory and later in pre-clinical settings to determine their effectiveness. Finally, those drugs that show promise must then be tested in carefully designed and critically executed clinical trials in humans before they can be approved for widespread use. This last step, known as clinical research or clinical trials, is where new treatment methods are strictly evaluated through closely watched patient studies. It is the key link in using basic biomedical research to develop new therapies. Through these trials, researchers learn new information about how cancers develop, how therapies work and perhaps for which patients the treatments are most effective.
