National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER)-Guwahati, Assam, India
Tumor Evolution & Molecular Therapeutics Lab
The capability of cancer cells to evolve and acquire resistance to various anti-cancer therapies holds a significant challenge in cancer drug discovery. Different chemotherapeutic drugs could contribute to genome instability in the primary tumours to initiate clonal evolution and drive the complex process of metastasis. Clonal evolution is often witnessed during the development of drug resistance in several cancer types. For instance, resistance to BRAF-inhibitor(s) in BRAF-mutant melanoma results in the evolution of tumor cell clones with hyper-activated RAS-ERK and EGFR signalling pathways. Considering the existence of complex cell clones in a tumour tissue microenvironment, continuing chemotherapy could accelerate tumour progression or relapse rather than tumour regression. Therefore, it is very important to study the clonal evolution driving signaling pathway alterations during tumor progression and identify the dominating sub-clones of cancer cells. Although it is a difficult task, this understanding will help to predict the ‘next move’ of cancer and inhibit or reverse the process of clonal evolution-driven cancer progression, drug resistance and tumor relapse. Our lab’s primary research focuses on exploring the functional association of various cancer metastatic signalling pathways with clonal evolution and drug resistance, their molecular cross-talk and therapeutic significance.
Major Research Focus
Clonal Evolution in Cancer
WNT Signaling in Cancer Progression
Novel Preclinical Cancer Models
Biomaterials for Cancer Research
