My group molecularly interrogates gynecologic tumors to identify genes and proteins and their corresponding signaling pathways that contribute to malignant transformation, the pathology of the disease, recurrence and/or resistance to therapy. Once key factors or pathways are identified, we actively test novel anticancer drugs to determine their efficacy in tumor explant models. To accomplish this we maintain a GYN-focused tissue repository. The repository infrastructure is extensive and is designed to collect malignant and benign tissues along with clinically annotated information.

To complement the banking efforts my group has developed a Bio-Banking infrastructure. To this end, we utilize a well-established in vivo experimental system in which primary tumors collected from ovarian and endometrial cancer patients at the time of initial surgery are grown in NOD/SCID mice. These explanted tumors and the primary tumors are genotyped and undergo cryopreservation using state of the art techniques. Once thawed, the tumors can be propagated in vivo through serial transplantation over several passages while retaining their original genotype and histophenotype. This allows for the generation of large cohorts of matched xenograft tumors ready for use in multi-armed therapeutic experiments. Our work to date provides evidence to suggest the clinical course of the primary tumor mimics the behavior and responses we have seen in our explants further supporting the potential clinical utility of our primary xenograft model. We can use our models to assess the efficacy of dual or sequential therapy. Specifically, we assess whether novel anti-cancer agents work better as a single agent or in conjunction with the standard of care or another anti-cancer agent.