Baylor College of Medicine Houston, Texas
Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Oncology Dudley and Tina Sharp Chair for Cancer Research Founding Director Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Identifying drivers of resistance and new treatment strategies in advanced estrogen receptor-positive and HER2-positive breast cancers.
While effective treatments for estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and HER2-positive breast cancers are available, many tumors are or become resistant to these therapies. Drs. Osborne and Schiff and their teams conduct laboratory and clinical studies to understand resistance to endocrine and anti-HER2 therapy and develop new treatment strategies to overcome it. They have a growing panel of sophisticated experimental models of drug resistance and metastasis, as well as data from clinical specimens—valuable resources to advance the understanding of the molecular drivers of drug resistance that can be shared with the wider research community.
In the past several years, the research group has used their growing panel of diverse and clinically relevant models to reveal several mechanisms of resistance to ER- and HER2-targeted therapies. They have also developed novel treatment combinations to overcome resistance., The group has identified key molecular factors in ER-positive breast cancer that promote endocrine resistance and metastasis, which when targeted with combination therapy could potentially overcome resistance. They have also identified potential new vulnerabilities in tumor cells resistant to CDK4/6 inhibitors that may be exploited in future studies. In HER2-positive breast cancer, they have identified multiple resistance mechanisms, including genomic aberrations in the HER2 receptors and increased levels of signaling molecules that reactivate the HER2 pathway.
The team will focus on further expanding their panel of genetically diverse models of acquired drug resistance to include current and emerging targeted agents. This includes a model of breast cancer brain metastasis resistant to anti-HER2 therapies, which will be critical for testing novel treatment strategies in this setting. They will also continue to characterize these models at the molecular and functional level and integrate them with relevant clinical datasets. Their studies will set the stage for future clinical studies to prevent or overcome resistance and will also help optimize the sequence of HER2-targeted agents in clinical practice.
C. Kent Osborne, MD received his AB and his MD from the University of Missouri, both with honors. He completed his internship and residency at Johns Hopkins and followed this with three years as a Clinical Associate at the Medicine Branch of the National Cancer Institute. He was a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center from 1977 until 1999 and became Chief of Medical Oncology in 1992. In 1999, Dr. Osborne moved to Baylor College of Medicine to direct a new Breast Center and in 2004 was named Director of the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor.
Dr. Osborne’s research interests have focused on the biology and treatment of breast cancer. He has published extensively on the role of growth factors in breast cancer pathogenesis and has also investigated the mechanisms of action and resistance to ER and HER2 targeted therapies in breast cancer. Dr. Osborne currently directs the Baylor Breast Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence Grant, and he has authored more than 400 manuscripts on the biology and treatment of breast cancer.
2002
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