Early drug development research program is equally committed to scientific discovery and patient care. Our worldclass young clinical investigators work across disciplines, departments, and institutional boundaries to translate research findings into new diagnostics and therapeutics for patients. The cornerstone of translational research of medical oncology staff is collaboration: close interactions among basic scientists, computational biologists, chemists, clinical investigators, and others. The group also enjoys fruitful partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, which have the complementary resources needed to help transform promising compounds into drugs and biologics. A major departmental research theme is linking knowledge of the genes that cause cancer to the discovery and testing of new therapeutics, involving both small-molecule drugs and immune approaches. Other key themes relate to developing personalized medicine strategies by using genetic, epidemiologic, and population-based studies to determine risk and ideal treatment for individual patients.
The early drug development team currently has nearly 40 open adult therapeutic clinical trials. It accrues several patients to therapeutic and non-therapeutic clinical protocols each year. Disease center members play a major role in the IEO research programs and in international cooperative group trials, such as the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) and the Breast International Group (BIG). Department investigators focus on testing new drugs in Phase I and II trials, particularly first-in-human studies that have the potential to move the boundaries of solid tumors oncology care. Technologies being offered include the isolation, enumeration, and genotyping of circulating tumor cells, determination of plasma cytokine levels, and genotypic analysis of plasma-based tumor DNA. All these technologies are applied in clinical trials.