PERSONALIZED MEDICINE AND IT’S RELEVANCE TO

CANCER PATIENTS

Casey Scarelli, Sallyann Vu, Jess Soule, Abrar Ahmed, Alief

Imam

RATIONALE

Genetic testing and analysis are the future of

personalized medicine. Eventually there will be a cure for

cancer. The American Cancer Society says personalized

medicine is not a “science fiction. We are starting to see the

first use of personalized medicine techniques now with

cancer treatment. Eventually, we will see this type of

therapy for all human illness.”

We found this to be extremely

motivating

in researching this question. It

could help

people like my friend Allison

Hawkes.

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

ouniquely modified to specifically target an illness or

disease

ospecific individual

ogenetic information

oenvironmental and clinical information

oseverity

ospecific mutations

AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

o “Personalized medicine lies in the chromosomes of

the patients.”

o “Cancer is a result of damage to our genes.

Cancer occurs when the switches inside your

genes that control cell growth malfunction. If a

growth gene is supposed to be turned off, it turns

on. If a genetic switch is designed to prevent

cancer growth, it fails. Cells that should be at rest

begin to divide, and a tumor develops."

THE PROPERLY FUNCTIONING CELL

o various checkpoints (G1, S, and G2) checked mutations or dysfunctions (deemed able or unable to replicate)o-Cyclin + Cyclin-Dependent Kinases (CDKs) proteins responsible for checking for any flaws and regulate replicationogrowth factors: proteins that stimulate cells to divideodensity-dependent-inhibition, crowded cells stop dividing because there is no available spaceoanchorage dependence: (animal cells) attached to substratumono anchorage = no division

THE IMPROPERLY FUNCTIONING CELL

disobey regulation factors

ignore cyclin, CDKs, and the external signals

There are millions of different variations of

these mutations, which is why cancer is so

difficult.

CAPABILITIES OF PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

oBreast Cancer- genetic testing can tell whether or not chemotherapy

would be successful, this skips a step by limiting the waiting and

increasing the ability to defeat the cancer

oChronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) blood cancer- leukemia is a

mutation believed to be in the Philadelphia Chromosome, knowing this

specific medications are being developed to fight this type of cancer in

a more personalized way

oLung Cancer- erlotinib and crizotinib are drugs that are used in

different patients depending on their mutations, these block the

mutated gene from spreading

oColon Cancer- K-ras is known to keep different antibodies from

working, knowing this can specialize the medicine to the patient

CAPABILITIES OF PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

oMetastic Melanoma- targeting the BRAF mutation

oBrain Tumor- bevacizumab (control the progression of the recurrent

tumor)

Goal: identify the protein responsible for inhibiting blood vessels grown

in brain tumor.

oPancreatic Tumors- research being done on a specific protein that

leads to pancreatic tumors

oRenal Cancer- Introtumoral neutrophils is a medicine specialized to

fight this intense type of cancer

TUMOR SUPPRESSOR GENES

o stop the cell from multiplying until the damage is

repaired

o stimulate cells with damaged DNA to commit "cell

suicide”

PROTO-ONCOGENES

oproteins that help to regulate cell growth and differentiation

oinvolved in signal transduction and execution of mitogenic

signals,

o not regulated, allowed to grow without any restraint; loss of

the regulation of cell cycle results in the mass replication

QUESTIONS LEFT WITH

oSince personalized medicine creates treatment for

a specific group of people with extremely similar

causes of cancer, what are the chances of the

possibility of having one specific treatment for one

specific person, or is that simply impossible based on

the world's population?

oWhat is the process of DNA testing and analysis? I

am interested to see how doctors actually do this for

cancer patients.

SOURCES

• http://

www.cancer.org/cancer/news/expertvoices/post/2012/04/18/the-future-is-now-

personalized-medicine.aspx

• http://www.scq.ubc.ca/the-cell-cycle-a-universal-cellular-division-program/

• http

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• http

://www.vanderbilthealth.com/neuroendocrine/healthtopics?topic=Pancreatic_N

euroendocrine_Tumor