WEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Researchers from Florida International University have created a new method that promises to personalize cancer treatments like never before. By integrating DNA analysis with drug testing on actual tumor samples, this approach would customize therapy for individuals battling cancer.
The research has allowed doctors to precisely target cancer cells through genetic testing evaluating the cancer cells against more than 100 FDA-approved cancer drugs within a week. This turnaround would give oncologists a better idea of which treatment path could be more successful for their patients. FIU researchers, led by Diana Azzam, have opened a new frontier in targeted cancer therapy.
For the first time, this approach was successfully applied to pediatric patients facing hard-to-treat, recurring cancers — those who had exhausted all other treatment options.
One of the most heartening success stories to emerge from this research is that of 8-year-old Logan Jenner, who has been in remission for over two years.
He underwent chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant only to face the heartbreak of relapse. Jenner’s involvement in the study helped doctors create a new and improved treatment as researchers excluded a medication that had previously been toxic for him.
The Jenner family, along with doctors who aided in the study, spoke Thursday at the Academic Health Center at FIU’s Wolfson Campus where they discussed the research in a news conference.
“It’s a miracle and it has changed mine and my husband’s perspective on life,” said Diana, Logan’s mother. “It’s rewarding to see everything he does. He plays the violin and he does jujitsu. He’s just incredible. We think he’s gonna be lawyer, he talks back all the time about everything.”
The crowd filled with laughter as Logan rolled his eyes at his mother’s remark.
Dr. Maggie Fader with Nicklaus Children’s Hospital explained how she had to tell the news to Logan’s parents when he started to relapse after his session of treatments.
“We had to tell them that now that he’s already had everything that’s considered upfront standard of care and it’s come back, that there is a less than 30% likelihood that we will get him back into remission and get him here in the next three years.”
The trial by FIU at the hospital gave the family hope.
“Adding all these drugs directly onto the tumor cells will identify what works and what doesn’t on the patients cancer cells,” explained Dr. Azzam at the news conference. “So instead of doctors guessing to see what works and what doesn’t.”
Dr. Fadder said Logan’s professional health team worked on determining what works for him during the investigation process of the research.
“We used the best choices of what we saw in his treatment and then hoping that would get us a better outcome and eliminate some of the unnecessary treatments that don’t work,” she said.
Other patients that exhausted all other treatments saw similar results.
“With this remarkable ground-breaking work has not just has this remarkable result in Logan, but in 83% of the children that had their tissue advertised in this laboratory right here,” said Raymond Rodriguez-Torres with the Live Like Bella Foundation, the organization that helped fund FIU’s research.
The research done by FIU sparks a glimmer of hope in the horizon for science and cancer research.
“Perhaps if we, in the future, are able to test and we see upfront that drug X and Y don’t work in this patient’s cancer, we don’t offer that. We just go straight to what does work,” said Dr. Fader.
The work continues at FIU with ongoing pediatric and adult trials.
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