{"id":6297,"date":"2019-10-10T16:07:35","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T20:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qa.vet.purdue.edu\/news\/?p=6297"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:58:07","slug":"pvm-faculty-pursue-developments-in-personalized-medicine-to-advance-cancer-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/pvm-faculty-pursue-developments-in-personalized-medicine-to-advance-cancer-treatments.php","title":{"rendered":"PVM Faculty Pursue Developments in Personalized Medicine to Advance Cancer Treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Purdue Veterinary Medicine and Indiana University scientists\nare working together to find data-driven solutions in the search for better\ncancer treatments.  A new cancer is\ndiagnosed every 30\nseconds<\/a> in the United States. Every three minutes, two people in the U.S.\ndie from cancer. Some of the deaths related to the disease arise from the fact\nthat the same drug that helps one person can be detrimental to another with the\nsame type of cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is one of the strong cases for personalized medicine,\u201d\nsaid Dr. Nadia Atallah Lanman, a research assistant professor in the College of\nVeterinary Medicine\u2019s Department of Comparative Pathobiology.  Dr. Lanman manages the Purdue\nUniversity Collaborative Core for Cancer Bioinformatics (C3<\/sup>B)<\/a>.\n\u201cWe are training the next generation of scientists to be able to move\noncological research forward in a data-driven manner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Dr. Jun Wan, assistant professor of medical and\nmolecular genetics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, the C3<\/sup>B\nis a joint bioinformatics core between the Purdue University\nCenter for Cancer Research<\/a> (PCCR) and IU\u2019s Melvin\nand Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center<\/a> (IUSCC). Bioinformatics is a\ndiverse interdisciplinary field, which combines statistics, biology, computer\nscience, mathematics and engineering to analyze and interpret complex\nbiological data sets. Researchers seek to understand basic and applied research\nquestions about the development of cancer and predict which people will respond\nwell to which treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"histopathologic
This image shows a histopathologic section, viewed under 40X microscopy, with the overview of the tissue architecture of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The image was provided by the Purdue University Collaborative Core for Cancer Bioinformatics (C3B), which brings together Purdue and Indiana University scientists to find data-driven solutions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

C3<\/sup>B scientists collaborated with two PVM faculty\nmembers on a project that uses pet dogs with naturally occurring diffuse large\nB-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) as a model for studying chemotherapy resistance in\nlymphoma patients.  Associate Professor\nof Comparative Oncology Mike Childress, a member of the Department of\nVeterinary Clinical Sciences faculty, and Professor of Basic Medical Sciences John\nTurek worked on the project with Purdue College of Sciences faculty member\nDavid Nolte, who is the Edward M. Purcell Distinguished Professor of Physics\nand Astronomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DLBCL is an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma and\nhalf of patients diagnosed with the disease will die because of the development\nof chemotherapy resistance. The project combined gene mutation data, gene\nexpression data and data from a technique, biodynamic imaging (BDI), developed\nby Drs. Turek and Nolte, which performed phenotypic profiling of\nthree-dimensional tissue samples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genetic mutations, BDI data and gene expression signatures\nrelated to the development of chemotherapy resistance and poor treatment\noutcome were identified. The study could change the way doctors prescribe\ntreatments for DLBCL, as well as identifying molecules and processes that can\nbe targeted by new chemotherapeutics, which could help patients who show\nresistance to standard chemotherapy regimens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that the two universities are working together to\ncontinue building and running the C3<\/sup>B is truly a strength,\u201d Dr. Lanman\nsaid. \u201cThese complex problems are not going to all be solved by one researcher.\nWe must work together to develop personalized therapies and to really get to\nthe heart of what causes cancer, and what can be done to prevent cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Tim Ratliff, the Robert Wallace Miller Director of the\nPurdue University Center for Cancer Research and PVM Distinguished Professor of\nComparative Pathobiology, has worked with C3<\/sup>B scientists in his research,\nwhich focuses on understanding immune regulation and the development of novel\napproaches for treating urologic cancers such as bladder cancer and prostate\ncancer through the modulation of anti-cancer immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ratliff group, in collaboration with the C3<\/sup>B,\nhas been using single-cell RNA sequencing to probe the heterogeneity in\nurologic cancers and to identify changes in gene expression that correspond to\ndisease development and severity, as well as to identify targets which could be\nexploited to develop new treatments for these types of cancers. So far, this\nproject has led to the identification of pathways and potential targets that\ncould enhance treatment of castration resistant prostate cancer, which is\ncurrently incurable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists from the Purdue Center for Cancer Research also work with the Purdue Research Foundation<\/a> Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a> to patent and commercialize innovations to move them from the research labs to clinics.  The cancer research and technology work aligns with Purdue’s Giant Leaps celebration of the university\u2019s global advancements in health as part of Purdue\u2019s 150th anniversary. It is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebration\u2019s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Purdue Veterinary Medicine and Indiana University scientists are working together to find data-driven solutions in the search for better cancer treatments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,11],"tags":[1337,1340,26,56,1344,150,1271],"class_list":["post-6297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-research","tag-cancer-treatment","tag-comparative-pathobiology","tag-featured-story","tag-homepage","tag-purdue-center-for-cancer-research","tag-research","tag-timothy-ratliff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6297"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34561,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions\/34561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}