Translational Combinatorial Therapies for Human Cancers

Treatment for cancer used to simply involve surgical excision of the tumor and some surrounding tissue. As cancer treatment evolved, other treatment methods were added in after surgery was performed, including radiation treatment and chemotherapeutics.

These chemotherapeutic drugs continue to play a key role in promoting tumor shrinkage and relapse prevention.

But today, cancer researchers like Dr. Copland are driving new developments in treatment.

Current scientific techniques allow our Cancer Biology and Translational Research Lab to identify novel genetic targets for specific subtypes of cancer. One of our goals is to test chemotherapeutic drugs that manipulate these novel genes and proteins in combinations that are specific to the subtype of cancer.

Dr. Copland and his research team hope to identify synergistic combinations and explore their mechanisms of action in order to promote bench-to-bedside research and to replace the current standard of care with more-effective therapies that have fewer side effects.