Oncology for Non-oncologists

• Disease mechanism-based drug discovery
• Towards precision oncology

Central Paradigm of Molecular Biology
Gene expression in health and disease
Early cellular hallmarks of cancer:

• Abnormal gene expression
• Stem-cell likeness and dedifferentiation
• Loss of dependence on growth signals.
• Resistance to cell division inhibitors
• Loss of apoptosis
• Limitless replication
• Genomic instability
• Epigenetic reprogramming

The somatic mutation theory
Cancer genetics:

• Mutations and chromosomal aberrations
• DNA repair mechanisms
• Driver and passenger mutations
• Oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes
• The cancer genome

Cancer epigenetics

Tissue level cancer hallmarks:

• Cancer-promoting inflammation
• Angiogenesis
• Immune evasion
• Deregulated bioenergetics
• Invasion and metastasis
• Tumor microenvironment

• Immunology primer
• Cancer-preventing and cancer-fighting cells
• Immunosurveillance: disease-preventing immunity
• Equilibrium, cancer-fighting inflammation: disease-fighting immunity
• Immunoevasion, cancer-promoting inflammation: disease-healing immunity
• Tumor microenvironnement
• Loss of tumor antigens
• Immunosuppression
• Inhibitory checkpoints
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• DNA sequencing
• PCR, quantitative PCR
• DNA biomarkers
• Liquid biopsies
• circulating tumor DNA analysis
• cDNAs and DNA microarrays
• site-directed mutagenesis, CRISPR

• Cell lines
• Organoids
• Xenograft mouse models
• Patient-Derived Xenografts
• Genetically Engineered Mouse Models
• Gene knockdowns, knock-outs and gene fusions

• Polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies
• hybridoma technology: chimeric and humanized mAbs
• phage display: recombinant mAbs
• Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)
• Immunohystochemistry
• multiplex fluorescence in situ hybridization (MFISH)
• fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS)
• Protein biomarkers

Chemotherapy:

• Mechanisms of action
• Classes of chemotherapeutic agents
• Side effects and management
• Drug resistance
• Future outlooks

Radiation Therapy:

• Types of radiation
• Mechanisms of action
• Side effects and management
• Future outlooks

Hormone Therapy:

• Mechanisms of action
• Side effects and management
• Future outlooks

• Stratified and personalized medicine
• Mechanism-based cancer classifications
• Companion diagnostics

Small molecules:

• Kinase inhibitors
• Growth factor receptor inhibitors
• Proteasome Inhibitors
• PARP Inhibitors

Antibody-based therapies:

• Chimeric, humanized and fully human mAbs
• Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity
• Complement-Dependent Cytotoxicity
• Bi-specific antibodies
• Antibody-drug conjugates
• Immunocytokines

• Immunomodulators
• Checkpoint inhibitors
• CAR T-cell therapy
• Adoptive cell transfer
• Cancer vaccines

• Universal CAR T cells
• Other CAR cells
• Oncolytic visruses
• Gene editing technologies
• Synthetic lethality
• Targeting cancer stem cells
• Targeting the tumor microenvironment
• Targeting the epigenome
• Targeting the microbiome