Molecular makeup and drug sensitivity data could help in fight against leukemia

Researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University are releasing data of the molecular makeup and drug sensitivity of 672 analysed samples of tumor cells from 562 patients with acute myeloid leukemia in the hope that it could advance clinical trials evaluating potential treatments for the disease. The researchers conducted the complete DNA sequence of each sample’s protein-coding genes, and profiles of gene activity, and also assessed how tumor cells from 409 of the samples responded to each of 122 different targeted therapies. They identified a set of three genetic mutations that may make AML patients good candidates for treatment with ibrutinib, and found that AML cells carrying all three mutations are significantly more sensitive to ibrutinib than cells with just one or two of those mutations.
Lead investigator Brian Druker, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at OHSU, said: “People can get online, search our database, and very quickly get answers to ‘Is this a good drug?’ or ‘Is there a patient population my drug can work in? The real power comes when you start to integrate all that data. You can analyse what drug worked and why it worked, which is the foundation for planning clinical trials to test new therapies in the patients who are most likely to respond. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of what we can do when we analyze the data.”