What does WORD Research do?

WORD is focused on many aspects of high-quality, innovative gynecologic cancer research.  WORD researchers seek to foster the exchange of knowledge and new ideas among scientists dedicated to cancer research, and increase public understanding of cancer. WORD strives to be a source of information about advances in the causes, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of gynecologic cancer.

To that end, WORD:

* Publishes in peer-reviewed scientific journals
* Presents at and participates in forums for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research and survivorship
* Convenes scientific conferences for the dissemination of knowledge featuring preeminent scientists from the cancer research community.
* Collaborates with cancer survivors, raises public awareness of the progress in and cause for hope in cancer research and advocates for strong federal research funding.

CLINICAL TRIALS

As promising cancer therapies and drugs emerge, WORD researchers strive to find ways to deliver these treatments to patients with minimal side effects.

Cis-Topo Study (Cisplatin and topotecan in advanced cervical and vulvar cancer prior to planned surgery)

The purpose of this study is to determine whether two approved chemotherapy drugs (cisplatin and topotecan) used together over a 9-18 week period can lead to significant shrinking of locally advanced cancers of the cervix and/or vulva.  This study will help determine if the use of a neoadjuvant therapy can achieve a reduction in tumor volume which will facilitate radical local surgical treatment.  If the cancer is reduced in size the surgery to remove all or most of the cancer may have a better outcome. If this happens it may avoid or limit the need for radiation therapy (or combined chemoradiation) which is currently recommended as the standard treatment for advanced cervical cancer. For patients with vulvar cancer, it may help avoid surgery that might involve more risks and require more tissue to be removed.

HAMPR  (Hydralazine Anti-methylation of the progesterone receptor in advanced gynecologic cancers)

Many patients with gynecologic cancers although initially responsive to chemotherapy, eventually develop drug-resistance.  Administration of therapies that reverse drug-resistance could prove useful in the management of gynecologic cancer patients. The purpose of this study is to determine whether use of two approved drugs (hydralazine and megestrol acetate) given by mouth at standard doses, used one after the other, can lead to a response or to stabilization of disease in women with advanced cancers of the ovary, peritoneum, uterus, fallopian tube, cervix, or vulva.

GOG

Currently, WORD researchers are participating in two Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) research projects.  The Gynecologic Oncology Group is one of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) funded cooperative cancer research groups. GOG is the only group that focuses its research on women with pelvic malignancies, such as cancer of the ovary, uterus, and cervix.  The GOG is committed to maintaining the highest standards in clinical trials development, execution, analysis and distribution of results.

NEW DIRECTIONS

Translational research is a key priority of WORD.  WORD scientists seek to learn from and contribute to the latest scientific discoveries from the laboratory and their clinical applications.

Translational cancer medicine happens at the interface between the lab and the clinic. It translates basic scientific breakthroughs to the practice of medicine and uses clinical outcomes to feed back into basic research. In order to make advances in translational cancer medicine, there must be open lines of communication between researchers and clinicians. With this goal in mind, WORD brings together researchers and clinicians from academia, private practice, industry and government.

Kollen Stacey Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Program

BioCD Project

(Proteomic Interrogation of Tissue Samples from Patients with Ovarian Cancer Utilizing Molecular Interferometry for the Purpose of Biomarker Discovery)

In recent years, cancer research has benefited greatly from the development of novel technologies that enable scientists to perform detailed, high throughput interrogation of proteomes and genomes.  These technologies have greatly augmented the knowledge of tumorigenesis and the etiology of cancer, and have resulted in a significant change in the pace of cancer research.  Ovarian cancer has received interest in this area because it is the most frequent cause of death from gynecologic cancer; it is characterized by vague early symptoms, and typically is diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in a poor prognosis.  Epithelial cancers, the most common of the ovarian cancers, arise from the cells lining the ovarian surface.  Existing epithelial ovarian cancer diagnostics are not sufficiently sensitive or specific to detect disease in asymptomatic women in the general population.  The goal of this research is to develop a highly sensitive and specific screening test consisting of a panel of biomarkers.  The test would aid in the diagnosis of early-stage epithelial ovarian cancer by utilizing a multiplexed proteomics technology based on molecular interferometry performed on a high-speed antibody array.

Epithelial ovarian cancer accounts for 15,000 deaths per year in the United States and over 125,000 deaths worldwide, making it the most lethal gynecologic malignancy.  When ovarian cancer is diagnosed in Stage I, up to 90% of patients can be cured with surgery and available chemotherapy.  At present, less than 25% of cases are diagnosed at this stage.  There is no effective screening strategy for ovarian cancer that will detect disease at an early stage.  A major goal of ovarian cancer research is to develop a highly sensitive and specific screening test for the disease that is capable of aiding in diagnosis at presymptomatic early stages.  To that end, we propose the development of a panel of biomarkers that would provide a convenient, cost-effective screening strategy while achieving greater than 90% sensitivity at 95% specificity.

CA125 is a surface glycoprotein of the mucin family – levels of which are typically elevated in ovarian cancer patients.   Currently, the assay of this glycoprotein is the only FDA-approved blood test for the detection of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).  CA125 is elevated in only 50% of women with Stage I EOC and in 82% of women with advanced stage disease.  Problematically, the concentration of CA125 is also found to be elevated in women with benign conditions such as ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and uterine fibroids, as well as in other cancers.  As such, this diagnostic offers little utility in early-stage detection. Ultimately and as a result of these limitations, CA125 is limited by a lack of sensitivity and specificity.  The degree of success for biomarkers under investigation has varied widely and no marker to date has been able to achieve better diagnostic capabilities than CA125.  Hence, further research is needed to investigate the diagnostic implications of analyzing biomarkers.

WORD is working in partnership with Dr. David Nolte and his team from Purdue University and Quadraspec, Inc, located in West Lafayette, IN.  Dr. Nolte is a professor of physics and the director of the adaptive optics and biophotonics group at Purdue University, and he is a winner of the prestigious Herbert Newby McCoy Award for outstanding contributions to science.   Dr. Nolte is the inventor of the BioCD, a high-speed antibody array technology that performs molecular diagnostics in the form of a compact disc.  The BioCD combines the sensitivity of spinning-disc interferometry (SDI) with the specificity of antibodies to detect disease.  Molecular interferometry is one of the most sensitive label-free detection approaches for multiplexed biomarker screens.  It uses a focused laser to rapidly interrogate tens of thousands of antibody spots printed on the surface of the disc.  Each antibody spot can bind a specific antigen present in a patient sample such as serum, ascites, urine, etc.  The BioCD scans rapidly over the antibody spots using high-frequency sampling that achieves a detection limit near the single-molecule level. Because no labels are used, this approach has the capability of analyzing potentially hundreds of biomarkers per sample.

The accuracy and reproducibility of results utilizing the BioCD platform will be validated based on comparison with serum levels of CA125 as assayed by standard testing methodologies and by comparing the relative levels of select biomarkers as demonstrated by immunohistochemical staining of representative tissue samples in both normal and tumor tissue.

TISSUE COLLECTION

For greater than a decade, researchers associated with WORD have collected clinically annotated tissue specimens from patients with gynecologic cancers.

WORD is actively soliciting support to expand its current bank into a repository of tissue collected state-wide from women at-risk and women with a gynecologic cancer.  Biospecimen resources are critical to the research community to support genomic- and proteomic-based cancer research because high quality biospecimens and the accompanying clinical data are necessary to understand disease mechanisms at the molecular level.  As a step toward achieving the highest possible biospecimen quality, WORD will implement the National Cancer Institute’s “Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources” guidelines.  These recommendations identify best practices for biospecimen collection, processing, storage and retrival; and they address concepts of good laboratory practice to encourage a level of consistency and standardization.

The tissue bank will address a critical barrier to research.  The expanded bank will serve as a unique resource for the collection and safekeeping of tissue from women with gynecologic cancer, and will advance efforts to identify biomarkers and other diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

Collaboration among patient advocates, clinicians, basic scientists, and volunteers is being sought to accept the challenge of developing an expanded tissue repository.

FUTURE COLLABORATION

WORD has established a strategic research partnership with the Oncological Sciences Center at Purdue University.   The Oncological Sciences Center integrates broad areas of the research community in life sciences, liberal arts, engineering and chemical sciences and functions as the Discovery Park arm of the Purdue Cancer Center.  The Purdue Cancer Center is among an elite group of Cancer Centers nationwide to earn the distinguished National Cancer Institute designation. It is one of just seven NCI-designated basic research Cancer Centers in the United States.

As promising cancer therapies and drugs emerge, researchers strive to find ways to deliver them to patients with minimal side effects. Nanotechnology affords the design and construction of nanoparticles that can be utilized for cellular studies and diagnostics.

As potential cancer therapies proliferate, researchers and clinicians are striving to measure their effectiveness and to more accurately predict which patients will receive the most benefit. WORD scientists hope to apply basic knowledge to medical practice and are developing tests that diagnose, predict or monitor cancer risks without invasive tissue sampling.  The Oncological Sciences Center provides a number of participants who are engaged in the development of mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, and flow cytometry for application in cancer diagnostics.

Recent discoveries about the role of stem cells in cancer have altered the landscape of cancer research. As scientists learn more about their cancer-initiating properties, stem cells are emerging as potential therapeutic targets for many types of cancers.

OUR GOAL

Sources of information and support within the cancer community are sometimes hard to find, and at other times the options are overwhelming.  All of us have a role to play in continuing the progress of cancer research. Our most powerful weapon is knowledge. This grows and spreads with the steady flow of communications among the members of the scientific community, the public, government officials and policy-makers, private practitioners, cancer patients, survivors and their families.