Oncology Experts Preview Exciting Precision Medicine Research

During the 2019 OncLive^® State of the Science Summit™ on Precision Medicine, we asked faculty from Texas Oncology and Quest Med Fusion to highlight exciting ongoing research efforts at their respective institutions.

R. Steven Paulson, MD

R. Steven Paulson, MD

President, Co-chair, Precision Medicine Program, and Medical Oncologist, Texas Oncology

“One of the [research areas] that [I find] really interesting is using real-world data, or real-world evidence, in terms of interpreting results that are essentially collected wisdom of the electronic age. Being able to interrogate an electronic health record and look at results of a subset of patients who have the same genetic mutation in their tumor or a set of patients who have a germline mutation that predisposes them [is intriguing]. To be able to segregate those patients into groups where we’re treating them specifically with the best therapy, not just treating all breast or lung cancers one way, is greatly advantageous to the patient.”

Lori Brisbin

Lori Brisbin

Vice President, Precision Medicine Program, and Molecular Biologist, Texas Oncology

“Texas Oncology has its own clinical trials program. [I wanted to share a] really good example [of what we do]. There is a pharmaceutical company that’s looking at a very, very rare mutation. They were talking to me and asked, ‘How many [patients with] this mutation do you have? We know it’s very rare.’ I kind of did a head tilt and I told them, ‘That mutation is not rare.’ They said ‘Well, outside of lung cancer, where do you see this?’ I responded, ‘Everywhere.’ They didn’t believe me, so we looked it up to see how many patients we’ve tested in the past 3 years had this mutation. We found that across Texas Oncology, there were 157 cases. They had been looking at 75 [patients] to enroll in their clinical trial. This is another application of precision medicine in a very practical perspective.”

Sreeni Chittoor, MD

Sreeni Chittoor, MD

Medical Oncologist and Hematologist, Texas Oncology

“We started a [Precision Medicine] Oncology Program, under the leadership of Lori Brisbin, almost a year ago and many strides have been made. One of the studies that I’m really excited about is evaluating peripheral blood in patients who have hormone receptor—positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer for PIK3CA mutations. We are also trying to determine sequencing for PIK3CA-targeted therapies and CDK4/6 inhibitors. Which goes first? We don’t know. This will be a great trial to help us understand how to sequence these new agents.”

Donald A. Richards, MD, PhD

Donald Richards, MD

Medical Oncologist, Texas Oncology

“At our institution, we are working with combination immunotherapy agents. We want to understand how to take a ‘cold’ tumor, one that’s not immuno-responsive, and make it ‘hot’ again. There are combinations that are in clinical trials to see if we can do that and obtain higher response rates than we see with anti—PD-1/PD-L1 agents.”

Kristen Champion, PhD, FACMG

Kristen Champion, PhD, FACMG

Senior Director, Molecular Oncology Laboratory, Quest Med Fusion

“We’re developing 2 big assays right now. There is a 13-gene fusion panel that will include NTRK fusions, so that’s a big story and we’re excited to bring that to our patients; it also includes the MET exon 14 skipping mutations. The other assay that’s coming is tumor mutation burden. That story is quite complicated; an entire presentation could be dedicated to that topic. We’re in the process of developing that, so hopefully, we’ll have more to share in the future.”