My research interests are in clinical breast cancer and in translational and early clinical research in the area of targeted therapies against growth factor receptors and downstream signaling molecules as. During my medical oncology fellowship and subsequently as a faculty member I conducted the…
more initial laboratory studies of the combination of conventional chemotherapy with the anti-EGFR antibody C225 (later known as cetuximab) and I conducted the first 2 phase I studies of cetuximab and the first phase II study of single agent trastuzumab (Herceptin) in patients with advanced breast cancer. Upon obtaining my position in Barcelona my work has focused in related areas: Understanding of the mechanisms of action of therapies directed at growth factor receptors; studying combinations of signal transduction inhibitors in preclinical models that could then be explored in the clinic; and, I have developed and incorporated into early clinical trials a program of pharmacodynamic assays to study the effects of these agents on their targets. We have shown in patients treated with anti-EGFR compounds inhibition of EGFR receptor and EGFR dependent signaling in surrogate tissues as well as in tumors. In addition, we have been developed pharmacodynamic markers for RAS farnesyltransferase inhibitors, mTOR antagonists and lately, anti-angiogenic agents. In addition, I have been a lead investigator in the early the clinical development of targeted therapies against receptors and receptor-dependent downstream pathways including trastuzumab, cetuximab, gefitinib, EMD-72000, RAS-farnesyltranferase inhibitors, the dual anti-erbB and anti-VEGFR agent AEE788 and the mTOR inhibitor RAD 001.
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