Medicine in the Genomic Era

Lecture 2 – Cancer as a Genetic Disease

by Charles L. Sawyers, MD
  1.  1.  Start of Lecture Two
  2.  2.  Profile of Dr. Charles Sawyers
  3.  3.  Cancer is a leading cause of death
  4.  4.  Understanding the biology of disease improves treatment
  5.  5.  Cancer definition and characteristics
  6.  6.  Cancer results from too much cell division or too little cell death
  7.  7.  Traditional cancer treatments remove or kill cancer cells
  8.  8.  Early clues into the nature of cancer came from an infectious disease
  9.  9.  Rous sarcoma virus misexpresses a chicken gene to cause cancer
  10. 10.  Mutated proto-oncogenes can become oncogenes and cause cancer
  11. 11.  Unlike in oncogenes, mutations in tumor suppressor genes are recessive
  12. 12.  Oncogenes accelerate cell growth, while tumor suppressors inhibit it
  13. 13.  Q&A: What's your opinion of genetic testing and prophylactic surgery?
  14. 14.  Q&A: How common are false positives and unnecessary treatments?
  15. 15.  Q&A: Are there mutations that prevent cancer?
  16. 16.  Q&A: How are cancer cells detected?
  17. 17.  Q&A: How common are point mutations in different cancer genes?
  18. 18.  Chronic myeloid leukemia and translocations of chromosomes
  19. 19.  Translocation results in the fusion protein BCR-ABL kinase
  20. 20.  Animation/Demo: BCR-ABL kinase signal propagation
  21. 21.  The drug Gleevec was developed to inhibit BCR-ABL
  22. 22.  Animation/Demo: Gleevec inhibits BCR-ABL activity
  23. 23.  Clinical trials demonstrate Gleevec is a revolutionary treatment
  24. 24.  In some patients, BCR-ABL can become resistant to Gleevec
  25. 25.  Drug resistance results from mutations in the BCR-ABL gene
  26. 26.  Animation/Demo: Dasatinib inhibits resistant forms of BCR-ABL
  27. 27.  Molecular technology catalyzed targeted therapies development
  28. 28.  Q&A: What if new BCR-ABL mutants are resistant to new drugs?
  29. 29.  Q&A: How do you find new drug candidates?
  30. 30.  Q&A: Can targeting angiogenesis expand treatment options?
  31. 31.  Q&A: How do environmental factors increase cancer risk?
  32. 32.  Q&A: Is BCR-ABL a membrane protein?
  33. 33.  Q&A: Are BCR-ABL and Gleevec degraded in the cell?
  34. 34.  Q&A: Do patients on Gleevec also receive chemotherapy?
  35. 35.  Q&A: At what point is a therapy considered a cure?
  36. 36.  Q&A: Can chromosome translocations be prevented?
  37. 37.  Credits


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