OCRF Researchers Discover Genomic Complexity and AKT Dependence in Serous Ovarian Cancer

01/20/2012
              

Dr. Doug Levine and Dr. Carol Aghajanian, both recipients of OCRF grants, were part of a project recently published in Cancer Discovery that studied AKT inhibition in ovarian cancer cell lines with various mechanisms of AKT pathway activation. Researchers found that some cell lines were responsive to AKT inhibitors, but depended greatly on other, co-existent, mutations. The genetic heterogeneity seen in the cell lines was reflected in human tumors included as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas.

These data suggest that AKT inhibition may be effective for a subset of ovarian cancer patients, but it will be heavily dependent on the existence of other genomic alterations in the AKT pathway and related signaling pathways.