The research interest of our group is focused on the pathogenetic mechanisms involved in development and progression of solid tumors and lymphoproliferative diseases. Moreover, great attention has been paid to the development of new diagnostic tools for detection of genetic alterations addressable with targeted therapy. In the present research project we propose to investigate the following topics: 1) Detection of ALK gene rearrangements in tumor tissue of patients with pulmonary adenocarcinoma by the use of immunohistochemistry. 2) The clinical, histological and molecular alterations of Burkitt lymphoma occurring in Iraqi children, a country with endemic EBV infection during early infancy. 3) Role of MicroRNAs in pre-neoplastic lesions of the breast.
Significant advances have been made in the chemotherapeutic management of cancer. Unfortunately, more than 50% of all cancer patients either do not respond to initial therapy or experience relapse after an initial response to treatment and ultimately die from progressive metastatic disease. Even though the pharmaceutical industry has been successful in discovering many new cytotoxic drugs that can potentially be used for the treatment of cancer, this life-threatening disease still causes near 7 million deaths every year worldwide and the number is growing. Thus, the ongoing requirement to the design and discovery of new cancer therapy is urgent. In general, cancer chemotherapy is usually accompanied by severe side effects and acquired drug resistance. Therefore, the development of target therapy that will allow greater tumor specificity and less toxicity is the need of the hour. Recently, some attempts have been made for this purpose including the usage of monoclonal antibodies or small molecules to inhibit the tumor growth. Recent technological advances in development of targeted therapies using kinase inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies have paved the way for personalization of therapy in a growing segment of cancer patients. In cases where validated predictive biomarkers are available, administration of targeted therapies such as ALK inhibitors in NSCLC have been associated with unprecedented tumor response and clinical benefit. However, significant challenges remain, and curative interventions for advanced malignancies are extremely rare. Efforts to design tolerable combination therapies involving immune checkpoint and kinase inhibition are rational means of maximizing clinical benefit in the targeted delivery of anticancer therapies. These efforts can greatly benefit from appropriate patient selection based on molecular or immunohistochemical characterization of tumors to supplement traditional disease classification schemes.
In our research project we aim to investigate by different meanings in different neoplasm the role and reliability of ALK immunoistochemistry as a diagnostic tool in pulmonary adenocarcinoma, the clinical, histological and molecular alterations of Burkitt lymphoma occurring in children, and the role of MicroRNAs in pre-neoplastic lesions of the breast.
Thus we postulated that the use of cutting edge technologies based on a rigorous standardization of methods and patients could be pursued to develop new diagnostic tools and biomarkers for cancer patients, in order to improve diagnosis and personalized treatment.