Personalized medicine: the future of breast cancer management

Abstract

10.2217/bmt.15.18 © 2015 Future Medicine Ltd Zhixiang Wang* speaks to Gemma Westcott, Commissioning Editor: After obtaining his PhD, Zhiziang Wang did his postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto (ON, Canada) supported by various scholarships including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Centennial Fellowship, Charles H. Best Postdoctoral Fellowship and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship. He started his first independent research position as a Career Scientist at Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Center (NEORCC) (ON, Canada) in 1996 and as an Assistant Professor at University of Ottawa (ON, CA) in 1997. He moved to the Department of Cell Biology, University of Alberta (AB, Canada) as an Assistant Professor. He is now a Full Professor at the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Alberta. His research has focused on ErbB receptor-mediated cell signaling, receptor endocytosis and human cancer. ErbB receptors including EGFR/ErbB1, ErbB2, ErbB3 and ErbB4 lie at the head of a complex signal transduction cascade that modulates cell proliferation, survival, adhesion, migration and differentiation. While ErbB receptor signaling is essential for many normal cell functions, the aberrant activity of ErbB receptors has been shown to play a key role in the development of many cancers. ErbB receptors are overexpressed in many cancers especially in breast cancer, ovarian cancer, small cell lung cancer and skin cancer. ErbB receptor overexpression correlates to poor prognosis, drug resistance, cancer metastasis and lower survival rate. All these make ErbB receptor the top choice as a target for developing cancer therapies. To date, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and synthetic inhibitors of tyrosine kinase have taken central stage. The central theme of his research is to understand how the activation of EGFR regulate cell signaling, how the signaling is terminated through EGFR endocytosis, trafficking and degradation, how the breakdown of this regulation contributes to cancer development and how an intervention can be provided. IntErvIEW