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12 Worcester Business Journal • July 20, 2015 www.wbjournal.com FOCUS Life Sciences Conquering cancer, one patient at a time I n 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a "war on cancer." But despite plenty of research on the disease since then, progress on reducing deaths related to the disease has been frustratingly slow. Now, scientists and doctors have opened a new front in the war: personalized medicine. "I think we've understood to some extent that cancer's not one particular disease but a collection of different types of diseases," said Joseph Duffy, head of Worcester Polytechnic Institute's biology and biotechnology department. "e biologies of tumors differ significantly." Central Mass. firms play their part in developing individual therapies BY LIVIA GERSHON Special to the Worcester Business Journal The push toward personalized medicine involves a lot of moving parts: tumor biopsies shuttled from bed- side to lab, fruit flies, mice and, of course, the constant search for funding. And Central Massachusetts insti- tutions and companies are right in the middle of it. Duffy studies a family of receptor molecules tied to some types of breast, lung and colon cancers. Working with fruit flies, he helped discover a protein molecule that could bind to the receptors, inhibiting the out-of- control growth that is cancer. While further tests found human receptors didn't respond the same way, Duffy and his colleagues are doing more work to modify the protein or find a replacement that would work on people. Once the biochemistry puzzle is solved, Duffy said, there's still a long road to creating a new class of drugs for personalized medicine. So far, his research has been funded mainly through the National Science Foundation. He said the next big step could involve a partnership with a pharmaceutical company, but com- panies these days are often demanding a therapy be well along the road to development before they're will- ing to take it on. That might mean the lab will need to Timothy Coleman, CEO of Nemucore Medical Innovations in Worcester, says diagnostic technology can determine whether one of the cancer treatments the company is developing is appropriate for a patient. P H O T O / R I C K S A I A >> Continued on next page