Endometrial Cancer Research Focus Of $1.7 Million SPORE Grant

Research funded by a $1.7 million Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant awarded to Washington University School of Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center is focusing on new approaches to identifying and treating endometrial and related cancers. Paul Goodfellow, PhD, principal investigator of the SPORE grant and professor of surgery, says that the support is enabling experts in genomics, diagnostics and developmental therapeutics to focus on projects that can be translated quickly into improved detection and treatment.

SPORE Project 1, co-led by Matthew Powell, MD, and Pamela Pollock, PhD, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, focuses on understanding whether treatments that target a specific molecular abnormality in uterine cancers can improve outcomes for women with endometrial cancer. The group’s initial discovery that the fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 gene (FGFR2) is mutated in 15 percent of endometrial cancers paved the way for a clinical trial using a biologic therapy that reduces the gene’s activity.

“All of the patients for the first drug trial have been enrolled, and the preliminary findings suggest patients with advanced endometrial cancer may have improved survival,” says Goodfellow. “Ongoing laboratory studies have revealed that certain subgroups of patients will respond better to anti-FGFR2 drugs than others, and the activity of additional compounds/ drugs was investigated. A second clinical trial is currently being developed that matches the genetic makeup of the patient’s endometrial cancer with a novel treatment agent.”

OTHER SPORE PROJECTS INCLUDE:

• Identifying changes in tumor DNA methylation that can be used to predict which endometrial cancer patients will benefit most from adjuvant therapies
• Determining the best strategy to identify women who developed their cancers because of an inherited genetic abnormality, which can then translate to earlier detection in relatives
• Investigating how the cancer cell is “rewired” to grow uncontrolled