Oncology Abstracts

Endocrine resistant estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancers are dependent upon cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) 4/6 for proliferation, making them highly suitable for CDK4/6 inhibitor treatment. Despite initial efficacy, acquired resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors is emerging and is now a major consideration in pre-clinical and clinical drug development. Current models of CDK4/6 inhibitor resistance do not mimic the clinical scenario where CDK4/6 inhibition will occur in th...

Uncontrolled genome doubling is an underlying cause of cancer cell aneuploidy and genomic instability, but relatively few drivers have been identified for this process. Cyclin E1 and cyclin E2 are cell cycle regulators whose dysregulation in oncogenesis promotes both increased proliferation and genomic instability. Due to their roles in normal physiological endoreduplication of the genome for specialised cell types, we hypothesised that cyclin E1 and cyclin E2 may be drivers o...

Estrogen Receptor (ER) signalling, upregulation of the cyclin/CDK pathway, and suppression of p53 form a critical axis controlling proliferation of ER positive breast cancer. In this setting, mutation of p53 is relatively rare and suppression of p53 function can be achieved via regulators MDM2 and MDMX. Activation of p53 by inhibition of MDM2 is a promising therapeutic target in p53 wildtype tumours and several drugs are currently in clinical trials. We hypothesised that the M...