Optimized drug combinations for effective cancer treatment: a personalized approach (OPTIM)

ERC-St-Grant-2015 to Prof. Patrycja Nowak-Sliwinska

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Summary

      This project aims to improve the treatment of colorectal carcinoma (CRC), as treatment options after first line chemotherapy are desperately needed. The key to improvement of cancer therapy resides in optimal combination of drugs. Optimally combining drugs is non-trivial due to the large number of possibilities, especially when more than two drugs are combined at various doses. In the current research program it was propose to use a differential evolution guided stochastic search algorithm to guide the way in finding optimal combination therapies.

     A new screen for optimal targeted combination treatment of advanced CRC will be performed. A series of 7 genetically different human CRC cell lines will be used in this screen, thus simulating personalized treatment. The optimized combinations will be  translated into preclinical CRC mouse models and tested in parallel to standard chemotherapy regimens. Development of a method for a personalized screen using freshly isolated tumor cells will prepare the technology for application in the clinic.

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 OPTIM-RELATED NEWS

• Our study on high-order drug combinations to treat colorectal carcinoma and its activity in in vivo models just accepted for publication in Molecular Oncology.
  
• Check the new movie created by Sahar Boss, Arbenita Dervishaj and Camille Paccard on colorectal cancer: https://ispso.unige.ch/labs/NOWAK/files/15_vulgarisation.mp4
  
• Our studies on drug-drug interactions in chemotherapeutic cocktails for colorectal carcinoma treatment are now published: https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/25/11/2614
• George M. Ramzy published his first paper in our lab on in vitro models for drug discovery: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/12/6/1423

• Berndsen BH, Swier N , van Beijnum JR, Nowak-Sliwinska P, Colorectal cancer growth retardation through induction of apoptosis, using an optimized synergistic cocktail of axitinib, erlotinib and dasatinib, Cancers, 11(12):1878, 2019.

• Our colorectal carcinoma 3D co-cultures attract attention:https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2019/la-3d-pour-tester-en-5-jours-les-traitements-personnalises/
• Drug repurposing in oncology - see our point of view: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31034926
• A movie created by Lena Neuenschwander, Camille Rimaud and Eloise Ducrey: https://epgl.unige.ch/labs/NOWAK/files/Cancer colorectal(1).mp4
• Marloes Zoetemelk presents her project during Swiss Cancer Center Leman meeting, Lausanne 2019
• Our research mentioned in La Journal: https://www.unige.ch/lejournal/numeros/journal1661/article-2/