PNNL-OHSU team part of NCI effort to bring proteogenomics to cancer patients
News Release
June 27, 2017 
RICHLAND, Wash. - The D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab is part of a nationwide effort to learn more about the role of proteins in cancer biology and to use that information to benefit cancer patients.
PNNL is paired with physicians and scientists at Oregon Health & Science University in one of 3 plans announced this week by the National Cancer Institute to bring detailed data about proteins to the bedsides of participants in current clinical trials. The OHSU-PNNL team is studying acute myeloid leukemia, the most common type of acute leukemia in adults. Other teams nationwide are focusing on breast and ovarian cancer.
The study at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute is sponsored by NCI and will include up to 200 participants. Physicians will look at the safety and effectiveness of several FDA-approved drugs that inhibit cell signaling that occurs in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The study is led by physician Brian J. Druker, director of the Knight Cancer Institute, with backing from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The PNNL portion of the study is led by Karin Rodland, chief scientist for biomedical research at PNNL.
For the current study, scientists will analyze blood samples from the study participants, looking at specific levels of proteins. The hope is to identify proteins that indicate which patients respond well to specific treatments and which patients don't respond to treatment, an important step to personalize therapies for patients.
The 3 Proteogenomic Translational Research Centers, created through NCI's Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research, embody the convergence in medicine of information about genes and proteins in an approach known as proteogenomics. Genes have been a pillar of cancer research and patient care for decades. But important, complementary information comes from proteins - the molecular workhorses that actually implement the genetic instructions in the body. Understanding both gives a more complete picture of the molecular basis of cancer. Last year, in a study published in Cell, Rodland and colleagues took at in-depth look at the proteins in the tumors of 169 ovarian cancer patients, marking one of the biggest studies ever done in proteogenomics.
"The beauty of adding a proteogenomic approach to clinical trials is that by using the patient's own cells and examining thousands of proteins and phosphoproteins for their response to drug treatment, therapy can be truly individualized, and ineffective treatments can be avoided," said Rodland.
PNNL is one of only 2 institutions nationwide involved in these new studies that are also participating in 2 additional efforts funded by NCI through its Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium:
- A Proteome Characterization Center headed by PNNL scientists Tao Liu and Richard D. Smith, which is focusing on the proteins involved in uterine cancer. The team will analyze samples from 200 people participating in research through the NCI network.
- A Proteogenomic Data Analysis Center that also includes scientists from New York University and Washington University. Samuel Payne leads the PNNL portion.
Overall, the institutions participating in the 3 CPTAC endeavors include:
- Baylor College of Medicine
- Broad Institute
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- Harvard
- Johns Hopkins University
- Massachusetts General Hospital
- Mayo Clinic
- Mt. Sinai Icahn School of Medicine
- New York University School of Medicine
- Oregon Health & Science University
- Pacific Northwest National Lab
- University of Michigan
- University of Washington
- Washington University
"Proteogenomics has great potential to unleash new insights in oncology. The combination of proteomic, transcriptomic, and genomic data can now reproducibly identify proteins in cancer genomes that were difficult or not possible to infer by genomics alone," said Henry Rodriguez, director of the Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research of the National Cancer Institute. "We envision that PTRCs will collaborate with NCI-sponsored clinical trials to expand/deepen our knowledge of drug response and resistance, ultimately improving our understanding of the cancer and the tumor proteome."
Tags: Fundamental Science, Biology, Health Science, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Proteomics, Cancer Research
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
