Targeting Colon Cancer

Richard Goldberg, MD, physician in chief of N. C. Cancer Hospital and UNC Lineberger associate director, is developing strategies for treating patients whose colorectal cancer has a mutation in a specific gene called KRAS.

"Forty percent of colon cancer patients with a mutation in the KRAS gene have zero percent chance of responding to one popular class of drugs used to treat the disease: epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors," Goldberg explains. "These drugs are expensive and have side effects, so we want to give them to people who have a chance of responding and develop effective strategies for more patients who need alternative treatments."

Goldberg notes, "We're looking at drugs that target genes and receptors downstream of KRAS. When tumors have a KRAS mutation, that pathway, which signals cancer cells to act aggressively, is locked in an on position. To effectively turn that signal off we need to interrupt that pathway downstream from KRAS," he says.

"We want to develop individualized therapies so we can understand which patients will benefit from a particular drug because their genetics are favorable, and which tumors are most likely to be hurt by a drug because that tumor's genetics are more susceptible to particular agents."