Animal Models and Combination Therapy

Mana Chandhok:
Hi everyone, welcome to this podcast from Cambridge Healthtech Institute for the World Preclinical Congress, which runs June 14th to the 17th 2016 in Boston, Massachusetts, I'm Mana Chandhok an Associate Producer. We have with us today one of our amazing speakers from the preclinical models and oncology track, Dr. Cory Abate-Shen, a Professor of Urological Oncology and an Associate Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Columbia University Medical Center.

You've mentioned combination therapy in your talk description, and we are really moving towards HIV like regiments for cancer when patients receive combinations of anti-cancer drugs in order to suppress cancer drug resistance. What kind of challenges does this approach add to the preclinical studies and work with animal models?

Cory Abate-Shen:
This is a very interesting question and a good place to start, because I think it emphasize both the power and the limitations of working with animal models. On the one hand the beauty and the power of working with animal models is that we have the ability to test a number of different drug combinations. Not only can we vary the drug combinations we can also vary the order or what's called the sequencing of the drugs.

We can also do experiments to study whether or not the levels of drug, in other words whether we should use low dosages drugs for longer period of time. To really basically tailor the drugs to minimize the resistance. These are studies that are doable in mice, then they would be much more difficult to achieve in developing comparable clinical trials.

On the flip side however, the challenge is to be sure that what you're actually studying in mice or in animal models in general, this goes for all models I think, are relevant and of course translatable to human clinic trials. This is always a big challenge and the way we can try to address that is to use to models that are what we refer to as well-credentialized.

Meaning that they're validated as effectively as possible to the human cancer types that they are intending to model or intending to emulate. Of course there are going to be physiological differences between the mice and humans that make these experience difficult and not always perfect, if you will.

Mana Chandhok:
In your opinion how a novel more sophisticated preclinical models appear to address new challenges in cancer drug development.

Cory Abate-Shen:
Well, I think it all really comes down to how good your models are. In other words, I think the expression is garbage in garbage out. If you really are working with models that are good models that are reliable models then you're not going to get information that's really comparable or relevant. The better the models the better applicability and translatability of the results.

What a lot of us who work on preclinical models have been doing over the past 10, even more years is first of all learning how to develop very sophisticated models. Secondly, how to use them properly to get the results that are more, as closely aligned with clinic studies as possible.

I think that basically it really goes hand-in-hand when we develop models that are more sophisticated that are more relevant, more and more nuance to the cancer type . At the same time we can also design studies that are more relevant to actual clinic trials. I think that will help to improve the translatablity of the findings that we have from mouse models, from animal models, to human clinical trials.

Mana Chandhok:
Thank you again for joining the preclinical models and oncology conference as a speaker. The conference is coming up soon in Boston on June 14th to the 17th. What are you looking forward to as a speaker and an attendee?

Cory Abate-Shen:
I'm looking forward to hearing what other people have to say. We work on bladder and prostate cancer, probably going to talk mostly about prostate cancer models at the meeting. I want to see how other people who are doing similar work have similar types of questions and challenges. Perhaps working in other model systems how they've been addressing some of these complexities and challenges and also overcoming some of the problems that we all have in trying to optimize the translatability of our studies. I think that basically we can all learn from each other, and I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the really fantastic speakers that you guys have lined up to help my own research.

In terms of what I hope to gain as a speaker I really value the feedback and the comments of the crowd, if you will, of the attendees and the other speakers in helping to shape our work and rethink some of our interpretations. I always find it very stimulating to get people's suggestions and helpful comments. That's what I'm looking forward to.

Mana Chandhok:
That was Dr. Cory Abate-Shen a Professor of Urological Oncology and Associated Director at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Columbia University Medical Center. She'll be speaking at preclinical models and oncology at the upcoming World Preclincical Congress taking place June 14th to the 17th in Boston, Massachusetts. If you'd like to hear from her in person go to WorldPreclinicalCongress.com/cancer-models. For registration information and enter the key code PODCAST. I'm Mana Chandhok thank you for listening.