=
CLINICAL INVESTIGATION OF A NEW COMBINATION THERAPY FOR LIVER CANCER
Narendra Wajapeyee , Ph . D .
Senior Scientist and Co-Leader , Experimental Therapeutics Program , O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center
Professor , Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics , UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Mehmet Akce , M . D .
Scientist , O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center
Associate Director , Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute
Associate Professor , Hematology & Oncology , Department of Medicine , UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Recruited to UAB in 2022 , Mehmet Akce , M . D ., serves as the leader of the Precision Medicine Working Group and works with faculty to develop a strong portfolio of precision medicine clinical trials for cancer . He is an experienced clinical trialist , and he has led several early phase trials , including molecularly targeted trials . He ensures patients have access to personalized clinical trials evaluating cutting-edge therapies based on known molecular alterations in their tumors .
Narendra Wajapeyee , Ph . D ., joined UAB in 2019 . Now co-leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at the O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center , he has investigated a wide range of therapies , in particular those that make use of natural killer cells . His lab identified a new role for the epigenetic modifier enhancer of zeste homology 2 ( EZH2 ) in the regulation of natural killer cells , which complements other studies showing the importance of EZH2 as an immunosuppressive oncogene . This was an important finding .
In light of the novel findings from Wajapeyee ’ s laboratory and Akce ’ s expertise in GI oncology , the two scientists developed a clinical trial that aims to combine a novel inhibitor with one of the
standard immune checkpoint inhibitorbased therapy approaches .
The preclinical discovery from Wajapeyee ’ s lab laid the path for clinical exploration of EZH2 pathway inhibition in liver cancer treatment . Akce has developed and led several other innovative investigatorinitiated clinical trials , and he brings his expertise in clinical trials to this project .
“ Hepatocellular carcinoma has a dismal five-year survival rate ,” said Wajapeyee . “ Immune checkpoint inhibitor-based therapy moved to front-line therapy ; however , it is active in only a subset of patients . Improving response rate in advanced HCC is an unmet medical need and a combination of novel agents and immune checkpoint inhibitors is an innovative approach .” ❚■
32 | O ’ NEAL COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER