New Immunotherapy Platform, Role of Stress in Cancer Highlight Roswell Park’s AACR 2022 Presentations

Newswise — BUFFALO, N.Y. — Dozens of cancer specialists at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have been invited to present their latest advances in cancer research at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), which will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from April 8 to 13.

Among the many Roswell Park researchers presenting their findings in areas ranging from newly approved targeted therapies to innate cancer immunity, highlights include a plenary session, a minisymposium and three late-breaking abstracts reporting findings from ongoing clinical trials.

Plenary: Clinical Trials Targeting the DNA Damage Response and KRAS 

Grace Dy, MD, Chief of Thoracic Oncology in the Department of Medicine, will give a podium presentation reporting long-term outcomes in a study investigating the effectiveness of sotorasib, a drug that targets mutations of the KRAS gene, in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Dr. Dy will discuss new information from the pivotal CodeBreaK100, a phase 1/2 trial that led to accelerated U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval last year of sotorasib for treatment of KRAS G12C-mutated NSCLC. Dr. Dy will highlight these findings Sunday, April 10, both in an afternoon oral presentation and in an AACR press conference at 11 a.m. CT onsite at the meeting.

Presentation details: CT008 - Long-term outcomes with sotorasib in pretreated KRASp.G12C-mutated NSCLC: 2-year analysis of CodeBreaK100 — Sunday, April 10, 4:31 p.m. CT, Great Hall AD, Convention Center

Minisymposium: Age and the Tumor Microenvironment

Irwin Gelman, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Oncology in the Department of Cancer Genetics and Genomics, will present the results of his research into the role of a protein, HBP1, and drugs that target this protein, in controlling breast cancer dormancy reawakening.

“A significant portion of breast cancer cases recur years, sometimes decades after all evidence of the initial disease has been removed by surgery, systemic drug therapy and/or radiation, because cells that metastasize early in the initial breast cancer disseminate to and colonize peripheral sites, including the bone,” says Dr. Gelman. “We are planning a preclinical study to assess how effective two repurposed drugs may be in decreasing breast cancer recurrence and increasing the long-term survival of breast cancer patients.”

In a minisymposium Tuesday, April 12, Dr. Gelman will share results of a Roswell Park study that used genomic screens to identify genes that specifically control breast cancer dormancy in the bone. The team discovered that shutting off the HBP1 gene, which normally turns off pathways that promote the growth and aggressiveness of metastases, causes the reawakening of dormant breast cancer cells grown in bone microenvironment culture conditions. Dr. Gelman will highlight how interactions between breast cancer and bone cells facilitate this dormancy signaling, and how drugs such as cyproheptadine may prevent the breast cancer metastases in the bone.

Presentation details: 3643 - The role of HBP1 in controlling breast cancer dormancy reawakening — Tuesday, April 12, Room 288-290, Convention Center

Late-Breaking Abstracts

Three Roswell Park researchers have been invited to share highly anticipated data on Monday, April 11, from ongoing phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for the treatment colorectal cancer, melanoma and breast cancer, in late-breaking poster abstracts.

Sarbajit Mukherjee, MD and Shipra Gandhi, MD, both Assistant Professors of Oncology in the Department of Medicine, will report findings from two studies that are part of a novel immunotherapy platform in development at Roswell Park under the leadership of Pawel Kalinski, MD, PhD, involving modulation of key proteins known as chemokines.

Dr. Mukherjee will present initial results of a phase 2 study evaluating a chemokine-modulatory regimen in patients with colorectal cancer metastatic to the liver (abstract CT105/ LB-7312), and Dr. Gandhi will present Systemic rintatolimod and interferon-α2b selectively reprogram local tumor microenvironment in patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer for enhanced influx of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes but not regulatory T-cells (abstract CT145/ LB-7620).

Benjamin Switzer, DO, a Fellow in the Department of Hematology, will report findings from a phase 2 clinical trial that advances knowledge in another signature area of Roswell Park research — the role of the sympathetic nervous system in cancer and response to cancer treatment. His presentation is β-2 adrenergic receptor (AR): Another immune checkpoint (IC)" A phase II clinical trial of propranolol (P) with pembrolizumab (Pem) in patients with unresectable stage III and stage IV melanoma (abstract CT568/ LB-7806).

Additional Poster Abstracts

In addition, 27 teams from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have been invited to present their latest research findings during the meeting:

• Gokul Das, PhD, Combination of tamoxifen and doxorubicin targets estrogen receptor beta-mutant p53-p73 axis: A novel therapeutic strategy for triple negative breast cancer
• Seamus Degan, Novel AKT isoform-preferred substrates as potentially targetable drivers of metastatic prostate cancer
• Ashish Gupta, MBBS, Favorable impact of higher environmental temperature on clinical outcomes in breast cancer - Does residence matter? A NCDB and SEER population-based study
• Hannah Calkins, BRD9 inhibition overcomes epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) tolerance in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutant lung cancer
• Edwin Yau, MD, PhD, Immunogenomic analysis identifies the complement pathway as a therapeutic target in STK11 mutant non-small cell lung cancer and Detection of circulating tumor DNA using CRISPR-Cas13a in non-small cell lung cancer
• Sarah Athans, STAG2 acts as a transcriptional repressor and promotes invasion of muscle invasive bladder cancer cells
• Rongrong Wu, MD, High RAD51 gene expression is associated with aggressive biology and with poor survival in breast cancer and Elevated bile acid metabolism is associated with breast cancer microbiome, less cell proliferation, and better survival
• David Cheng, PhD (senior author), Weight changes between one year before and following breast cancer diagnosis in relation to mTOR protein expression in tumor tissues in the Women’s Circle of Health Study
• Sydney Grant, Comparison of mutational burden hotspots in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and UV-exposed healthy skin for development of optimal targeted sequencing panels
• Aftab Alam, PhD, KRAS and fungi cooperate to drive IL33 secretion and type 2 immunity in the pancreatic cancer tumor microenvironment
• Joseph Barbi, PhD, Obesity dependent benefits of metformin for improved anti-tumor immunity and outcomes in non-small cell lung cancer
• Xiaozhuo Liu, PhD, Bioinformatics approaches to dissecting androgen receptor activity and cancer stemness during prostate cancer development and progression
• Igor Puzanov, MD, MSCI, FACP, Effect of camidanlumab tesirine (Cami) as monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab (PEM) on the immune cell profile in patients with selected advanced solid tumors and First-in-human trial of intravenous MEDI9253, an oncolytic virus, in combination with durvalumab in patients with advanced solid tumors
• Lu Yang, PhD, Depleting EGFR and HER2 overcomes resistance to EGFR inhibitors in colorectal cancer
• Gabrielle Harmann, Novel pharmacological approaches of inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway in T-cell lymphoma (TCL)
• Jennifer Mongiovi, Associations of sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2), metabolic disorders, and survival following incident epithelial ovarian cancer
• Shipra Gandhi, MD, Negative impact of paclitaxel on human breast tumor microenvironment and its reversal by the combination of interferon-α with TLR3 agonist rintatolimoz
• Changchuan “Charles” Jiang, MD, Clinical outcomes in women with metastatic HER2-Low breast cancer in the real world

Global Scholar-in-Training Award

Additionally, Andrea Anampa-Guzmán, a Research Assistant with the Lymphoma Service within the Department of Medicine, received a Global Scholar-in-Training Award for Breast cancer care quality in Peru (abstract 3656), a study of the impact of complementary medicine services on the quality of care among women undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

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Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a community united by the drive to eliminate cancer’s grip on humanity by unlocking its secrets through personalized approaches and unleashing the healing power of hope. Founded by Dr. Roswell Park in 1898, it is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. Learn more at www.roswellpark.org, or contact us at 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or [email protected].