|
|
Founded in 2006, the ATAC Research Fund supports research dedicated only to Adrenocortical Carcinoma, also known as cancer of the adrenal cortex or ACC. From this research we hope to quickly translate clinical findings into more effective treatments for Adrenocortical Carcinoma patients and ultimately a cure. The ATAC Research project at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix, Arizona,was founded by Troy Richards, a 9 year adrenal cancer survivor. The ATAC Fund is now one of the largest adrenal cancer research projects in the world, already discovering hopeful new targets, producing more Adrenocortical Carcinoma data than ever before and using tools never before used on ACC research.
TGen is also currently leading the largest Genomics adrenal cancer research project to date. There is only one drug on the market approved for the disease. In the past 40 years, little progress has been made toward finding an effective treatments for ACC, with only one drug called Mitotane being an approved therapy. Mitotane is a derivative of DDT. Adrenocortical cancer only one or two people in a 1.7 million people and is often difficult to collect enough adrenal tumors to analyze, which is why the TGen study is so significant.
The research program at TGen, headed by Dr. Kim Bussey, Ph.D. and
Michael Demeure, M.D., is currently analyzing Adrenocortical tumors, benign adrenal tumors and normal adrenal tissue with several Genomics technologies. TGen researchers are using the Genomics data to identify mutations and design new diagnostic tools and therapeutics to combat this aggressive disease.
Cancer of the adrenal cortex accounts for between 0.02 and 0.2% of all cancer deaths. It is one of the least common, but, most lethal endocrine malignancies. Surgical removal offers the only current potential for cure. Unfortunately, adrenocortical cancers have undergone metastatic spread in approximately 40-70% of patients by the time of diagnosis. This late diagnosis and a lack of effective systemic treatments result in a relatively poor overall 5-year survival rate of 20 to 35%.
Newer and more effective therapeutic drugs against this rare form of adrenal cancer are clearly needed and rat poison (Mitotane) is not the answer. The modern molecular technologies developed during the era of the sequencing of the human genome project offer the potential to analyze DNA alterations and the expression changes of thousands of genes in human adrenal tumors. Along with affording knowledge of the oncogenic processes in adrenal cancer, increased disease specific genetic knowledge leads to the identification of novel targets for therapeutic agents.
More About TGen Please Visit www.tgen.org
|
|
