We’re proud to share that our research team presented two posters this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the premier international conference on cancer science.
In one poster, we detail what we've learned about a recent hypothesis called replication stress in chordoma and provide rationale for exploiting it therapeutically with gemcitabine, a widely-used, low-cost cancer drug, and a class of drugs called ATR inhibitors, which are currently in clinical development. More about these potential new therapeutic options can be found here. Hints for the replication stress hypothesis in chordoma came from researchers at the National Center for Tumor Diseases in Germany; our grantees and collaborators at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and a member of our Medical Advisory Board (MAB), Greg Cote, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital. We’re exploring the hypothesis further in collaboration with Dr. Cote and Lee Zou, PhD, a DNA replication expert at Duke University School of Medicine.
The other poster reports on new insights about mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to EGFR inhibitors like cetuximab and afatinib, both of which are currently in clinical trials.
Our AACR posters are notable not just for the results we’re sharing, but because this is the first time we presented our own research at a major professional conference (in the past we’ve contributed data and been coauthors on posters but not presenting authors). It’s a role without much — possibly any — precedent for a patient-led organization in the world of cancer research. And it’s an exciting indicator of both the pace and significance of the work by Chordoma Foundation Labs in its first year.
We’ll share more details about the results we presented at AACR soon; subscribe to our newsletter to be notified.