Final Report Summary - GENES, DRUGS AND BREAST CANCER (Discovering Gene-Drug Interactions in Breast Cancer With a Systematic and Genetically Tractable Model)
The mutations that provide cancer cells with the ability to form tumours come at a cost: they also result in vulnerabilities that can potentially be exploited by drugs. Uncovering such vulnerabilities, however, is an arduous task as they are difficult to predict. To address this, scientists employ large scale experimental screening approaches in cancer cell lines or other heterogeneous models. In this project, we made use of carefully engineered cancer models and screening these against well-defined sets of small molecules and drugs. By doing so, we identified several novel cancer cell vulnerabilities that have the potential to be translated into therapeutic strategies for genetically defined subsets of cancer subtypes.