Helen Moore, Ph.D., an associate professor in the laboratory for systems medicine in the division of pulmonary, critical care & sleep, is leading a project that will optimize melanoma cancer therapies in dogs, eventually translating for human use through RNA sequencing and mathematic modelling.
Moore is a mathematician who spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry before returning to academia three years ago. Her specialty is optimal control, a method she uses to computationally optimize combination drug regimens, which researchers can then test experimentally.
Upon arriving at UF, Moore looked for collaborations where her mathematical modelling could unpack other researchers’ novel datasets. This is how she got in touch with Bently Doonan, M.D., a clinical assistant professor in the division of hematology & oncology in the department of medicine, and Rowan Milner, Ph.D., a veterinary medicine oncologist, with the ROSF-backed idea.
Moore has been excited to engage in newfound partnerships empowered by the UF Medicine culture.
“Our laboratory sits around the corner from the clinicians,” she said. “It’s been powerful to be able to just walk around the corner, run into somebody and start a collaboration.”
Her project focuses on studying canine melanoma patients, whose tumors closely resemble rare human melanomas, allowing her team to obtain more samples than would be possible with human patients. The team will collect tumor samples from dogs before or after they receive a cancer vaccine and analyze them using bulk RNA sequencing, a technology that reveals which genes are expressed in a sample.
The ROSF award will support the costs for the collection and analysis of RNA sequencing to determine the presence and quantity of immune cells pre- and post-vaccination.
The team will use this data to develop a mechanistic mathematical model of the dynamic between a tumor and an individual’s immune system. Through more analysis, they will identify the most influential pathways, apply optimization methods, and determine the extent to which these pathways should be changed to achieve the greatest tumor reduction.
The future of medicine is quantitative, Moore said. Unlike AI which takes large amounts of data and finds patterns, quantitative methods incorporate mechanisms, use smaller datasets, and can be used to extrapolate beyond available data.
Following the completion of this grant work, the next steps will involve designing new cancer vaccines targeting the identified pathways and validating the results in animal models. With the help of Doonan’s research and clinical expertise, the team will eventually translate and test their findings in humans— breaking new ground in treating rare melanoma thanks to the help of mankind’s canine companions.
Read the full article Planting the Seed: A look at UF Medicine’s 2024 Research Opportunity Seed Fund recipients HERE.