Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York, New York
Professor of Medicine Member and Lab Head, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program Director, Developmental Research Program, MSK Breast SPORE Section Head for Translational Research, Breast Service, Department of Medicine
Chair, BCRF Scientific Advisory Board
Deciphering the underlying biology of drug resistance to improve patient response to targeted therapies.
Advances in cancer therapy have been a major contributor to the decline in breast cancer deaths over the last three decades. Even with these advances, however, breast cancers have the ability to evolve, adapt, and become resistant to drugs, resulting in tumor growth and metastasis to distant sites in the body, an uncurable stage of the disease. Dr. Chandarlapaty is focusing on understanding why treatments that initially are effective against breast cancer become ineffective over time, and then developing new approaches to prevent or overcome drug resistance.
Dr. Chandarlapaty’s team has uncovered several key findings in resistance to anti-HER2 and hormone receptor-directed therapies, including a promising strategy to overcome CDK4/6 inhibitor resistance, which is currently under development for clinical use. They also identified novel mutations in the hormone receptor that prevent a response to antiestrogen therapies. His team then tested newer antiestrogen drugs for overcoming this particular form of resistance with some success and will continue to optimize the treatment. In other studies, Dr. Chandarlapaty and his colleagues are currently studying a process breast cancer cells use to coopt viral defense mechanisms making them resistant to cancer treatment and ultimately to spread to other tissues.
His team will continue to refine their targeted approach to prevent resistance to hormone-directed therapy and delve deeper into the causation of resistance in breast cancer. As they delve into understanding how the viral defense mechanism is leveraged by breast cancer cells, they hope to devise novel treatments to overcome this process. Further, such new therapies against cancer evolution may help maintain breast cancer responsiveness to current therapies and move us closer to more resilient treatments.
Sarat Chandarlapaty, MD, PhD, is an Associate Attending medical oncologist and a Laboratory Head in the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He earned his medical degree at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and his PhD at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Chandarlapaty completed his residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and his fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A major focus of his work has been to characterize the significance of alterations present in metastatic tumors that have progressed following targeted therapies such as antiestrogens or CDK4/6 inhibitors, as well as to develop models of resistant cancer for testing newer therapeutic strategies.
2015
The Delta Air Lines Award
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