NYPOG Mission

NYPOG will translate basic science discoveries regarding cancer cell dissemination, induction of invasive, stem and dormant cancer cell phenotypes and formation of metastases into clinical practice.

Vision

NYPOG will bring cancer cell dissemination biomarkers and therapeutic targets for decreasing metastatic burden to clinical practice

Goals

  1. To establish the analytic validity and clinical validity of metastasis biomarkers and their utility in patients of different backgrounds.
  2. To develop minimally invasive approaches for testing the dissemination potential of multiple cancer types.
  3. To identify therapeutic approaches targeting cancer cell dissemination and metastasis formation.

Objectives

  1. To establish the clinical validity of metastasis biomarkers (TMEM, MenaINV MenaCalc, and combination of these scores) for prognosis in early breast cancer and determine the clinical utility of these markers for predicting benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.
  2. To determine the clinical validity of metastasis biomarkers in residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
  3. To develop an MRI-based algorithm that may be used to determine the cancer dissemination potential and response to inhibitors of dissemination by minimally invasive approaches.
  4. To develop approaches for the automated evaluation of the pro-metastatic tumor microenvironment components (e.g. MenaCalc, stem, dormant and invasive cancer cells).