EACR 2016

Targeting and imaging invasion and metastasis

Prof Margaret Frame - Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre, Edinburgh, UK

I presented some of our work on understanding the complexity of key proteins and signalling molecules in invasion.

What did you find?

What we found is that one of the proteins which there are many drugs made against in the clinic and being used in the clinic, they’re probably not working the way that we expect them or think they’re working. So we’ve been understanding the complexity and the rather complex ways these proteins drive cancer cells to become invasive.

What cancer types can you look at with this?

We can do it in a number of cancer models but the one I presented today is on squamous cell carcinoma.

What led you to focus on squamous cell carcinoma?

It’s a model where using a particular strategy to develop the cancer you get high mutational load and very advanced cancer cells that are very invasive so it’s a very good laboratory model to investigate the function of proteins in invasion and metastasis.

What methodologies have you used in your investigation?

We’re using some very high end protein technologies such as proteomics to understand the proteins that interact with molecular scaffolds and how these are regulated and using proteins, identifying the interactome, and using network biology to understand the key hubs and nodes of these interactions that drive the cancers.

What clinical benefit can be drawn from your research?

The clinical benefit should be that we understand better how to use drugs that are already available. We understand more about the molecular mechanism of the proteins that they target and therefore we can identify the best ways in which to use them, the best patients, the best stage. Understanding how to use drugs comes from understanding the basic biology of the disease and the protein targets of these drugs.

Is this headed towards personalised medicine?

Yes, I think understanding how to use drugs in particular contexts, perhaps not yet in terms of which patients with which molecular properties, but definitely trying to better understand how drugs will work and when they won’t work.

Do you think it’s important to focus on the drugs we already have rather than on developing more and more?

Yes, I think it happens to be that the proteins we’re working on there are already drugs to these proteins, using these proteins as targets, because they’re also kinases so they’re good drugs, they’re good targets for drugs. The drugs have been made by the pharmaceutical companies and they’re in clinical trials, some of them are approved but that happened before we understood exactly how these proteins work and there are many surprises about how these proteins work that will be helpful.

Where do you see your research going in years to come?

I think we will understand a lot more about particular protein targets for drugs and the rather complex biology that underlies the role of these proteins in cancer in different contexts.

What have been your highlights from the EACR conference?

Amazing new work on immune oncology, amazing new work on drug resistance and just met very many friends and collaborators with whom it’s always a great pleasure to discuss science and cancer research.