AURORA -- A New York-based pharmaceutical company has awarded researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center $3.5 million in grants for a clinical trial targeting lung cancer patients.

The grant from ImClone Systems will fund a two-year trial to test about 2,000 advanced lung cancer patients at the cancer center for a specific biomarker — a molecule that can be used to detect a cancer cell. According to researchers involved in the project, targeting the biomarker, known as an epidermal growth factor receptor, could eventually make chemotherapy more effective for specific types of cancer patients.

“What we have specialized in is to find out which patients will benefits from those particular drugs,” said Fred Hirsch, a researcher at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and a lead researcher on the project. “We do that with particular genetic testing of the tumor.”

The project will involve researchers at the cancer center and at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Hirsch said that by focusing on specific biomarkers in dealing with lung cancer patients, the research team is working to create an individualized treatment for the disease.

“We are moving toward personalized therapy. If you take 100 patients with lung cancer, their tumor does not have exactly the same biological characteristics. In order to determine which treatment will suit the patient, we need to study the patients’ tumor for individual characteristics,” Hirsch said. “This project is a step toward personalized medicine. That is what makes it so encouraging ... Hopefully, one day we can cure the disease because we are able to map the biological characteristics.

“That is the whole perspective in this grant,” Hirsch added.

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