Adrenal Cancer Genetics

Research on the genetics of adrenal cancer has two components; mouse studies and human studies (as explained below):

Mouse Studies

These studies evaluate the role of adrenocortical stem cells in the development of adrenocortical tumors. Through a variety of genetic approaches, such as deleting or mutating a given gene in a mouse, or adding back a gene to a mouse - the effects of this genetic changes on adrenal growth are analyzed. These studies help identify genes that are dysregulated in adrenal cancer, and that will lead to direct biologic therapies. The preliminary testing is done with mice with the hope this will lead to human clinical trials.

Human Studies

These studies utilize the Michigan Endocrine Oncology Repository (MEOR) to correlate gene profiles with clinical data regarding:

1) tumor stage and grade, metastasis etc.

2) patient outcome data - how well patients responded to
treatment; how long did remission last, etc.

Read about this on the Hammer Lab web site

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