Biomarkers are an important measure of health and disease that can help doctors understand how to more effectively treat cancerous tumors. The topic of TIGER-Bio, a new approach to biomarker discovery, came into the spotlight in a workshop on the final morning of Individualizing Medicine 2016: Advancing Care through Genomics,

Dr. Mitesh Borad

The session, TIGER-Bio: The Integrated Genome-analysis Enabled Response Biomarker Program, was one of four final workshops.

Many tumors have several mutations – and that may have physicians and investigators asking, which mutation is most critical? What’s the best course of treatment to attack the tumor? TIGER-Bio uses many different genetic platforms to discover markers of health and disease, and it allows for the rapid development of clinically-available tests.

Xenograph models for cancer research

Dr. Mark Truty

Mitesh Borad, M.D. and Mark Truty, MD, MS spoke about xenograph (PDX) models for cancer research. PDX models generally maintain similar characteristics to a patient’s actual tumor. PDX models have been shown to be good indicators of how well a patient’s actual tumor will respond to treatment.

Three-dimensional models and liquid biopsies

Dr. Minetta Liu

• Panos Z. Anastasiadis, Ph.D. and Minetta C. Liu, M.D. and Minetta C. Liu, M.D. spoke about three-dimensional cancer models, as well as cell free DNA and liquid biopsies. These new tools show the potential to speed up selection of individualized treatment options and to provide monitoring of patient response to treatment.

Genomic research approaches

George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., spoke about research approaches deriving from mate pair sequencing, a type of whole-genome sequencing that can identify chromosomal rearrangements, as the basis to integrate genomic information. This approach might aid individualized patient evaluation and treatment. Ram Samudrala, Ph.D. spoke about Interactomics that include novel computational analysis tools for drug design.

Dr. George Vasmatzis

Other workshops on the final morning of the conference included:

Epigenomics: Bridging the Translational Gap

Microbiome All You Need is Bugs

Pharmacogenomics (PGx): Applying PGx with the Clinical Pharmacogenomics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) and the Dutch Pharmacogenetic Work Group (DPWG)

The Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine hosted the conference with support from the Satter Foundation.

For a wrap up and summary of  news related to the Individualizing Medicine Conference, visit our blog, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter at @MayoClinicCIM and use the hashtag #CIMCon16.

You’ll want to save the date for next year’s Individualizing Medicine Conference. It will be held Oct. 9 - 11, 2017.

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