The scientific strategy
The vision
The scientific and medical programs aim to develop molecular tests that identify as early as possible which patients present a hard-to-treat cancer. For this, the goal is develop molecular tests that predict drug sensitivity in each patient.
The scientific strategy is to integrate research in applied mathematics into translational medicine projects and interpret cancer cell biology in the context of intratumor heterogeneity and immune environment. Finally, develop new biotechnologies for diagnosis use.
The projects builds on three concepts
First, targeting the molecular mechanisms of cancer progression, including immune suppression, leads to therapeutic effect.
Second, biology of cancer should be assessed in its complexity. This means that all components of biology, including microenvironment, should be integrated to deliver robust precision medicine tools.
Third, cancer becomes more complex over the time, and targeting mechanisms of cancer progression is more effective when done early in the disease course.
The use of biotechnologies and bioinformatics tools that model disease, early in the disease course, will improve cancer patients outcome.
The scientific strategy
Prism’s end product is a diagnostic method that identifies targets for effective therapeutics. To achieve this, it is necessary to have a tool that models cancer in each patient.
The strategy developed to achieve this is to understand in each patient, each component of cancer biology (identification of alterations that create cancer progression, mechanisms of the evolution of subclones, identification of subclones responsible for resistance mechanisms, immune tolerance).
Multidimensional molecular and biological analyzes and the use of new mathematical approaches to integrate and model data should lead to a diagnostic method for identifying targets and early identification of patients at risk of death.