NAME OF THE PROJECT:
MARÍA GARCÍA ESTRADA FELLOWSHIP
DATE:
August 2006-2009
PLACE:
DUKE COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER, Universidad de Duke, USA
PERSON RESPONSIBLE
Doctor Richard F. Riedel MD
INVESTIGATION TEAM
Drs. Brian Brigman y Doug Tyler de Cirugía,
Drs. Jon Gockerman y Michael Morse de Oncología Médica,
Dr. Nicole Larrier de Radiooncología,
Drs. Michael Datto y Leslie Dodd de Patología.
TARGET OF THE PROJECT
Patients with advanced sarcomas are difficult to treat. Current chemotherapy regimens are suboptimal and do not take into account the wide diversity between subtypes of sarcoma. Preliminary data suggest that the profile of gene expression would provide a window through which to observe and investigate the basic biology of the subtypes of sarcoma and response to therapy. The team believes that the implementation of a genomic profile would be useful for identifying novel therapy that may be used alone or in combination with standard chemotherapy.
The identification of patients for whom specific therapy could benefit, will allow us to develop new strategies for the treatment of sarcomas as well as to improve the patients’ results.
AVAILABLE FUNDS
The initial allocation for this project, amounting to $500,000 in total, has been endorsed by the company Marquette and Partners, of The Chicago-London Stock Exchange, where Maria worked for her last two years. The
Maria Garcia Estrada Foundation has contributed $68,000.