Comprehensive surfaceome target discovery in Osteosarcoma

CERSI Collaborators: Jim Wells, PhD; Alejandro Sweet-Cordero, MD; Kevin Leung PhD
FDA Collaborators: Jeffery Summers, MD; Martha Donoghue, MD; Kristin Wessel, MD; Michael Norcross, PhD; Wenming Xiao, PhD
Project Start Date: September 1, 2024

Regulatory Science Challenge:

Osteosarcoma (OS) is a rare bone cancer that affects approximately 800 children and young adults yearly in the United States. The current standard of care involves cytotoxic chemotherapy and surgery, and no new effective treatments have been developed in the last 40 years. A comprehensive understanding of cell surface proteomics in OS will provide a catalog of potential combinatorial targets for immunotherapy.  

Project Description and Aims/Goals:

This project aims to simultaneously identify and measure thousands of proteins on the cell surface of OS cells using mass spectrometry techniques. Genomic and transcriptomic analysis of OS cell models grown in tissue culture and patient-derived xenograft models will be performed to understand how the genetic information translates to the proteins on the surface of OS cells.

Anticipated Outcomes/Impact:

Investigators expect that the findings from this study will provide a deeper understanding of OS and offer potential ways to treat this disease. Their work will be used to build a roadmap for studying other rare cancer types where there is limited material available to be studied. Findings from this study will be disseminated in manuscript publications with a rigorous emphasis on the techniques and biological discovery.