Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
$500,000 Michele and Ted Kaplan Family Senior Investigator Grant
Research Title:
Synthetic Lethal Drug Discovery In Triple Negative Breast Cancer
PARP inhibitors are promising new drugs for a subset of breast and ovarian cancers. However, single agents PARP inhibitors show little activity in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Dr. Koefler will use a TNBC cell model to evaluate the effect of single gene mutations on the response to PARP inhibition. Mutations conferring sensitivity will be further tested in cell lines, animal models, and TNBC patients. Based on our findings, Dr. Koefler will develop an assay to evaluate PARP sensitivity in clinical samples. The study will provide valuable insights that can be translated into biomarkers for patient selection and new drug combination therapies.