John Paul Shen, MD
University of California, San Diego
Improving Outcomes in Ovarian Cancer: A Network Genomics Approach
Technological advances now allow for sequencing of tumors from large patient cohorts. However, this knowledge of the cancer genome has not yet been translated into the clinical practice of oncology. Dr. Shen works in the Ideker lab which has developed a novel bioinformatic technique called network-based stratification that incorporates knowledge of genetic networks with somatic mutation profiles to allow for the unsupervised clustering of tumors into clinically relevant subtypes. This technique has demonstrated promise in predicting patient prognosis and response to platinum chemotherapy. Dr. Shen proposes validation of this method in vitro, the development of a clinical biomarker based on these subtypes, and a pilot test of said biomarker on primary tumor samples.