Triple-negative breast cancer and targeted therapy: Why such complexity?

Presented by Dr Murugan Kalimutho, Senior Research Officer, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute

Although the development of targeting small molecules and checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionised the field of personalised medicine in multiple cancers, many patients still remain unresponsive to treatment due to inherent and adaptive resistance mechanisms. Understanding the biological pathways behind these mechanisms is crucial in developing more effective combination therapies. Once understood, treatments can be directed to specific patient subsets, based on their molecular and genomic changes.

In this presentation, I will discuss strategies to combat triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of breast cancer with targeted therapies, mainly focusing on targeting the cell signalling and cell cycle networks. I will discuss the role of immune cells in sensitising small molecule inhibition to circumvent resistance phenotype in preclinical models. I will also introduce a novel approach using machine learning to identify signature that can predict patient’s response towards targeted therapy.

Speaker Bio: Murugan Kalimutho is a senior research officer at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. He gained his PhD at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ in 2010 and worked as postdoctoral scientist at the University of Belfast in the UK before joining QIMR in 2012. Kalimutho’s research focuses extensively on cancer therapies and deciphering molecular pathways contributing to drug resistance in breast and colorectal cancers. Moreover, his research also involves understanding the molecular and cellular basics of gene function in DNA damage response signalling, cell cycle and mitosis. Using multidisciplinary approaches, he has identified key roles of several proteins involved in cell division and mitosis, cell signalling, spermatogenesis as well as DNA damage and repair signalling.