Targeting DNA damage response pathways for the treatment of advanced lung cancer

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is an urgent, unmet need for novel therapeutic approaches that are efficacious against lung cancer. Ranking first among cancer deaths in the U.S., this disease has 5-year relative survival rates of lt20%. Most lung cancers are non-small cell (NSCLC, 85% of cases). Curative surgery is not an option for the 80% of NSCLC patients who present with advanced stage III cancer. For these patients chemo/radiation therapy remains the standard of care, and presently there isno effective strategy to improve radiation therapy outcomes. The central innovative theme of the proposed research is: a newly identified chemical entity YTR107 sensitizes human tumor cells to the lethal effects of ionizing radiation. YTR107 is efficacious in genetically diverse tumor types because its novel intracellular target plays a key role in homologous recombination, a critical DNA repair pathway utilized by dividing cells, including proliferative tumor cells. Targeting a key component of the DN