The Cancer Precision Medicine Laboratory employs multi-disciplinary approach involving genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics to characterize molecular alterations associated with various cancers. These alterations provide insights into mechanisms underlying molecular pathogenesis of cancers. They can also serve as biomarkers for identification and stratification of patient sub-groups that can benefit from targeted therapeutic intervention strategies. In addition, the lab works on delineating mechanisms of acquired resistance to kinase inhibitors and devising novel strategies to combat therapeutic resistance.
CURRENT RESEARCH
- Cancer biomarkers and targets are extremely useful to diagnose and monitor a disease. Most diseases including cancers can be effectively treated if diagnosed early. There is an urgent need for cancer biomarkers for risk assessment, early diagnosis, stratification of patients to determine appropriate therapy and to monitor treatment response. We employ high-throughput methods including genomics and proteomics to identify potential biomarkers and putative targets for various cancers.
- Drug resistance has limited the efficacy of almost all targeted therapeutic agents used to treat cancers. Our group works on understanding drug resistance mechanisms in cancers by generating drug resistant clones by subjecting cancer cells susceptible for specific targeted therapeutic agents to selection pressure with appropriately chosen drug concentrations. We employ genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics approaches to characterize these resistant clones and understand drug resistance mechanisms. These resistance mechanisms could be targeted to achieve durable responses to cancer therapy.
Staff & Internal Collaborators
- Keshava Datta, Research Officer
- Professor Kum Kum Khanna
- Dr Nic Waddell
External Collaborators
- Prof. Akhilesh Pandey, Johns Hopkins University
- Dr. Sekar Seshagiri, Genentech, USA
- Dr. Aditi Chatterjee, Mitra Biotech, India
- Dr. Prashant Kumar, Institute of Bioinformatics, India
- Dr. Keshava Prasad, Yenepoya University, India
- Dr. Shivashankar H Nagaraj, Queensland University of Technology
We gratefully acknowledge support from the following organisations and funding bodies:
- National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
- QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
STUDENT PROJECTS
No Student Projects