Novel therapeutic approaches are necessary to improve the outcome of patients with sarcomas and other solid tumors.  Dr. Matushansky [Damon Runyon-Gordon Family Clinical Investigator] aims to test his hypothesis that chromatin remodeling agents, which alter gene expression, can induce solid tumors to undergo biological and morphological changes that lead them to resemble their corresponding normal tissue, a process referred to as maturation or differentiation.  Maturation or differentiation therapy provides an opportunity to fundamentally change the biology of the underlying cancer (and thus its overall prognosis).  While a change of an undifferentiated/high-grade sarcoma (or carcinoma) into completely normal tissue remains an ideal, albeit likely unrealistic goal, a change from a ‘poorly differentiated/high-grade’ tumor to a ‘well-differentiated/low-grade’ tumor is attainable; this can improve an individual’s median time of survival from months to decades.  Dr. Matushansky hopes to implement this therapeutic approach for sarcomas and other solid tumors.

 

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Project Title: "Implementing and imaging epigenetic based differentiation therapy for solid tumors"

Institution: Columbia University

Sponsor(s) / Mentor(s): Carlos Cordon-Cardo, MD, PhD

Cancer Type: Sarcomas

Research Area: Experimental Therapeutics