New pathology research center aids personalized medicine
Both a tissue repository and a state-of-the art laboratory for studying genetic signatures in cancer cells, the new Center for Molecular Oncologic Pathology at Dana-Farber represents a major move toward the goal of personalized medicine.
The joint venture of Dana-Farber and Brigham andWomen's Hospital is located on the second floor of DFCI's Jimmy Fund Building. The spacious facility is state-of-the-art, equipped with sophisticated instruments and staffed by a cadre of experts who are working to advance cancer diagnosis and treatment by obtaining genetic signatures – tell-tale patterns of gene activity in cancer cells – and discovering in detail how experimental drugs alter those signatures.
"The center is designed to support investigators in their quest for the molecular analysis of tumors," says Dana-Farber's Massimo Loda, MD, director of the Center, which opened in June 2007. "We expect that it will be a central hub where researchers can interact, collaborate, and use novel technologies to translate basic science discovery into patient care applications for cancer."
Dr. Loda is also a senior pathologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The researchers in the Center for Molecular Oncologic Pathology all hold faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and are faculty of Brigham and Women's pathology department. Besides Dr. Loda, other investigators in the center include Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD; Keith Ligon, MD, PhD; and Shugi Ogino, MD, PhD.
One room houses large silver-colored tanks for storing tissue samples at low temperatures, and another contains equipment for extracting genetic material and proteins from tissues and body fluids.
Dr. Drapkin, who is searching for early diagnostic biomarkers for ovarian cancer, says the instruments and devices are hooked into a digital system that "enables you to upload all of this data into a platform so that an investigator can access it anywhere."
DFCI President Edward J. Benz Jr., MD, who toured the newly remodeled space and talked with staff members when the center opened, says, "Pathology is at the absolute center of any effort to move toward personalized medicine. The Center for Molecular Oncologic Pathology was created to provide the very best resources and science so that we know what to look for in cancers."
The center's facility will be devoted strictly to research, while clinical pathology services will continue to be carried out at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
