The Andrew Koff Lab: Projects
The Lab of Cell Cycle Regulation
Subsets of oligodendroglioma exist, each with distinct clinical responses that are dictated by the underlying biochemical and molecular profile of the tumor. Currently, the effectiveness of treatment strategies for glioma is poor and new therapeutic targets might be obtained through a better understanding of the nature of this disease.
Clinical Implications of SAGA
It was our colleague’s clinical experiences evaluating CDK4/6 inhibition as a therapy for patients with well-differentiated and dedifferentiated liposarcoma that grabbed our interest and led to our current focus in SAGA. As is typical with new drugs, some patients do well and others do not. Being incorporated in their efforts to understand this es allowed us access to patient samples to determine whether CDK4/6 inhibitor induced senescence in cultures was of any clinical value. In seven patient samples collected pre- and post-treatment we were able to establish an association between MDM2 down-regulation and patient outcomes thus raising the possibility that SAGA was a clinically relevant mechanism of action for this class of drugs.