University of Southern California
$100,000 Tower Career Development Grant
Research Title:
Tumor Heterogeneity and Resistance to HER2 Therapy in Gastric Cancer
Despite the success of targeted drugs in cancer care, patients frequently develop resistance to these drugs. This may be due to intra-tumor heterogeneity and the existence of genomically diverse cells within a single tumor.
In theory, the cells that do not respond to the targeted drug will expand and become the dominant cell population in a tumor. Using a novel experimental and computational approach, we will infer tumor cell ancestry and measure intra-tumor heterogeneity in HER2 positive stomach cancers. We will determine whether intra-tumor heterogeneity predicts response to Herceptin and will identify biomarkers that are associated with treatment resistance.