Even when they are the same malignancy, like breast cancer, tumors can range significantly from person to person. Precision oncology thus focuses on particular genetic traits of a tumor and incorporates them into therapy. Existing therapies can be “adapted” in this way to minimize adverse effects and cut costs on pricy treatments. This exemplifies how cancer will be treated in the future.
The most recent developments in multi-omics tumor profiling have now been summarized and reviewed by Prof. Mark A. Rubin, director of the Department for BioMedical Research (DBMR) and the Bern Center for Precision Medicine (BCPM), and Dr. Dilara Akhoundova, medical oncologist at the University Hospital Bern and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern. The researchers examined the technologies under consideration’s potential for integration into precision medicine in their review, which was published in the prestigious journal Cancer Cell.They also offer a critical assessment of the technologies’ current degree of translational validation. Thanks to these new technologies, we now have a previously unheard-of level of understanding of cancers. Using this new technology, we can view the 3-D panorama of mountains, valleys, and lakes; it’s as if we were told, using the conventional tools, that Switzerland has a higher altitude than the Netherlands. ” Mark A. Rubin, Director of the Bern Center for Precision Medicine
Integrating novel technologies into the clinic as fast as possible
The newest technologies still need to be standardized, or new infrastructures in clinics are needed because of the examination of a very high volume of data, or regulatory approval, before they can be utilized in the clinic. These are just a few of the obstacles that need to be overcome.
Liquid biopsy, which enables more rapid and minimally invasive cancer type identification in patients, is one of the most innovative and promising precision oncology tools today. This calls for intrusive operations, sometimes done while the patient is under general anesthesia, especially when the tumor is deep within the body, like in the lungs or pancreas. In both translational and clinical cancer research, numerous technologies, including liquid biopsy, are being used. They still need, in some circumstances, an extra approach that improves “measurement accuracy” for specific samples even though their clinical potential is currently quite high. Other technologies are still in their early stages and need to be tested in the real world to see if they can even do what they were made to do.
Bern initiatives for cancer research in Switzerland
A key area of concentration for BCPM is the advancement and application of new, cutting-edge technologies in precision medicine. To advance precision oncology and introduce novel technologies to patients, it is crucial that research teams at the BCPM, including those led by professors Mark A. Rubin, Marianna Kruithof-De Julio, and Sven Rottenberg, work closely with clinical oncologists from the University Hospital Bern and other Swiss institutions. The main author of the study, Dilara Akhoundova, said, “In this review, we look at how these new techniques might be turned into tests that can better predict how patients with cancer will respond to treatment.”
The Swiss Oncology and Cancer Immunology Breakthrough Platform (SOCIBP), a crucial Bern precision oncology initiative, aims to create a common genomic “language” for Swiss cancer research. Genomic testing in Switzerland will be standardized, and molecular tumor data will be presented and shared in an understandable manner. The Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), a federal program, is providing funding for the study. The standardization and clinical validation of genomic assays evaluating DNA repair in prostate cancer and other solid tumors is the subject of one of our ongoing translational efforts, according to Rubin. The main objective of the study is to create more trustworthy prediction biomarkers that will enable precise oncology treatment for malignancies with DNA repair abnormalities.
