Biology Commons^™

Using Bioinformatics To Increase The Number Of Tumors That Can Be Treated With Existing Drug Treatments, Jonathan Dayton, Stephen Piccolo

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Typically, tens or even hundreds of mutations are observed in the DNA of a single tumor by the time it has been detected1-4. Knowledge of these mutations may be useful in guiding the way the tumor is treated. In some cases, if a tumor has a mutation in a certain gene, this may indicate that the tumor can be treated with a certain drug. For example, the drug Trastuzumab is a targeted therapy for breast cancer patients with mutations in the HER2 gene5. In other cases, a mutation may be able to be targeted by a drug even if the …