Hiu Wing Cheung, PhD
Medical University of South Carolina
Development of Oncogene-Targeted Therapy for Ovarian Cancer
Tumors contain thousands of DNA alterations, making it difficult to identify the causal factors of the disease. This proposal applies high-throughput screening approach to assess 500 genes for their ability to promote tumor growth. Dr. Cheung identified GAB2 as a potent cancer-causing gene whose copy number is abnormally increased in 36% of primary ovarian tumors. He will investigate the signaling mechanisms underlying its cancer-causing effect and evaluate the efficacy of rational targeted agents in treating advanced patient-derived primary ovarian tumors in mice. Credentialing novel cancer-causing genes represents the first crucial step towards developing more effective targeted therapy for treating ovarian cancers.