UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO-MEDICAL SCIENCES CAMPUS

This award is for the recruitment of Dr. Maribel Tirado-Gomez. Dr. Tirado-Gomez's immediate career goals are to develop proficiency in cancer research having the financial and time resources to allow her development as an independent researcher in the cancer field. Her long-term objectives are to become a researcher in the field of cancer epigenetics in hematologic malignancies with particular emphasis in acute myeloid leukemias. In order to achieve that, we will develop a research continum where laboratory findings will be correlated with clinical data in order to generate and test hypothesis regarding the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia. The research unit will be integrated by: (1) a basic laboratory unit, and (2) a clinical research unit. In this project we will analyze the methylation status of 10 genes in a group of adult patients with diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia. We will correlate the methylation status of those genes with clinical characteristics of the disease such as age, white blood cell count, percentage of bone marrow blasts and response to treatment. We will also correlate the status of methylation of the genes with molecular characteristics such as cytogenetics and evidence of minimal residual disease as measured by PCR. This project will thus provide a description of the molecular epidemiology of acute myeloid leukemia and will provide laboratory data that could be use to support clinical testing of demethylating agents that are currently entering the clinic. Also the patterns of gene methylation will be evaluated in acute myeloid leukemia cell line cultures to identify potential pathways responsible for the pathogenesis of the disease. The grant provides for the salary of the researcher, Dr. Maribel TIrado-Gomez, a clinical coordinator (clinical unit) and a laboratory technician (laboratory unit). In addition, the grant provides for equipment to support the research agenda. The equipment will be obtained within the first two months of the grant, and the personel (clinical coordinator and laboratory technician) will be also hired within that time period. At the time of this report the IRB proposal has been submitted and we expect to obtain approval of the project within the first month of the grant period. We expect to obtain enpugh preliminary data in order to be able to present our findings in either the AACR Epigenetics meeting in January 2010 or at the Annual Meeting of the AACR in March 2010.

Clarification of Codes