HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - Gene-Guided Chemotherapy Research Questioned

gdpawel · 07-09-2011, 05:10 PM

When Juliet Jacobs found out she had lung cancer, she was terrified, but realized that her hope lay in getting the best treatment medicine could offer. So she got a second opinion, then a third. In February of 2010, she ended up at Duke University, where she entered a research study whose promise seemed stunning.

Doctors would assess her tumor cells, looking for gene patterns that would determine which drugs would best attack her particular cancer. She would not waste precious time with ineffective drugs or trial-and-error treatment. The Duke program — considered a breakthrough at the time — was the first fruit of the new genomics, a way of letting a cancer cell’s own genes reveal the cancer’s weaknesses.

But the research at Duke turned out to be wrong. Its gene-based tests proved worthless, and the research behind them was discredited. Ms. Jacobs died a few months after treatment, and her husband and other patients’ relatives are suing Duke.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/he...h/08genes.html

It's not just Potti, and it's not just microarrays. The whole concept of using molecular "signatures" of any kind to do anything beyond the most straightforward of cases (i.e. single gene mutations, etc.) is so flawed that everyone should have seen the problems at the beginning.

The reason what no one seemingly sees it now can be explained by the facts that the technology itself is so elegant and beautiful. But a beautiful biological technology is no different than a beautiful computer technology -- it's not worth much without some very good applications ("apps"), and personalized molecular medicine is still waiting for its first killer app.

Until such time as cancer patients are selected for therapies predicated upon their own unique biology (and not population studies), we will confront one targeted drug after another.

The solution to this problem has been to investigate the targeting agents in each individual patient's tissue culture, alone and in combination with other drugs, to gauge the likelihood that the targeting will favorably influence each patient's outcome.

Functional profiling results to date in patients with a multitude type of cancers suggest this to be a highly productive direction.

07-09-2011, 05:10 PM	#19
gdpawel Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 1,080	How Bright Promise in Cancer Testing Fell Apart When Juliet Jacobs found out she had lung cancer, she was terrified, but realized that her hope lay in getting the best treatment medicine could offer. So she got a second opinion, then a third. In February of 2010, she ended up at Duke University, where she entered a research study whose promise seemed stunning. Doctors would assess her tumor cells, looking for gene patterns that would determine which drugs would best attack her particular cancer. She would not waste precious time with ineffective drugs or trial-and-error treatment. The Duke program — considered a breakthrough at the time — was the first fruit of the new genomics, a way of letting a cancer cell’s own genes reveal the cancer’s weaknesses. But the research at Duke turned out to be wrong. Its gene-based tests proved worthless, and the research behind them was discredited. Ms. Jacobs died a few months after treatment, and her husband and other patients’ relatives are suing Duke. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/he...h/08genes.html It's not just Potti, and it's not just microarrays. The whole concept of using molecular "signatures" of any kind to do anything beyond the most straightforward of cases (i.e. single gene mutations, etc.) is so flawed that everyone should have seen the problems at the beginning. The reason what no one seemingly sees it now can be explained by the facts that the technology itself is so elegant and beautiful. But a beautiful biological technology is no different than a beautiful computer technology -- it's not worth much without some very good applications ("apps"), and personalized molecular medicine is still waiting for its first killer app. Until such time as cancer patients are selected for therapies predicated upon their own unique biology (and not population studies), we will confront one targeted drug after another. The solution to this problem has been to investigate the targeting agents in each individual patient's tissue culture, alone and in combination with other drugs, to gauge the likelihood that the targeting will favorably influence each patient's outcome. Functional profiling results to date in patients with a multitude type of cancers suggest this to be a highly productive direction.