Preclinical and clinical studies have informed the development of increasingly effective cancer therapies. However, in the majority of cases patients subsequently develop resistance to the therapies that previously worked.
This SU2C–NSF Lung Cancer Convergence Research Team comprises cancer biologists, physician scientists with expertise in clinical oncology, and mathematical modelers. Using patient samples of two cancers as test cases (acute myeloid leukemia and non-small cell lung cancer), they are investigating the dynamics of therapeutic response and resistance in patients. These models will change in response to treatment and tumor evolution, allowing investigators to computationally test possible treatment regimens and select the most promising results for examination in cell culture, mouse models, and eventually in clinical trials. This research will help scientists understand the emergence of resistance to therapies in cancer cells and test new treatments to overcome that resistance.