We collaborate with clinical investigators conducting clinical trials of new therapeutics in breast cancer. In each clinical trial there is a subset of patients that respond to the treatment, and unfortunately, a fraction of patients that do not respond. Drug development programs are often canceled in early phase trials if the fraction of patients that receive benefit is not sufficient, even if the drug is extremely effective for a small subset of patients. If a biomarker test could be developed to identify the subset of patients that receive the greatest benefit from each therapy, more drugs would be approved for specific indications and more of the diverse subtypes of breast cancer would have effective therapies. We perform genomic analyses (including RNA-seq, DNA methylation analysis, and whole genome sequencing) on tumor biopsies collected from patients enrolled in clinical drug trials. Our goal is to identify genomic signatures that distinguish patients that respond, and rapidly develop clinical-scale tests that can be used to selectively enroll similar patients in subsequent trials. We hope that developing companion diagnostic biomarker tests early in clinical drug trials will lead to the approval of more therapeutics for use in the specific patient populations that receive the most benefit.
