European Lab Automation Congress

Triple negative breast cancers (lacking Estrogen, Progesterone and HER2 receptor expression) constitute approximately 15% of breast cancers. Unlike Estrogen receptor positive and HER2 positive cancers, there are currently no targeted therapies for triple negative breast cancers, necessitating treatment with cytotoxic drugs. Furthermore, the acquisition of multi-drug resistance limits the effect of cytotoxic chemotherapeutics. Identifying new therapies for triple negative cancers lacking the adverse effects of cytotoxic therapy is an important goal, but conventional drug discovery is expensive and time-consuming. The repurposing of existing drugs is an attractive alternative, as a wealth of preclinical and clinical data is already available, greatly reducing the time and resources required to bring a candidate drug to clinical trial. The Johns Hopkins Clinical Compound Library, containing approximately 1,500 clinical compounds, was used to screen a multi-drug resistant, triple negative breast cancer cell line, MDA16, for drug sensitivity. Primary screening identified 30 compounds with antiproliferative cytotoxic activity, including antifungals, antibiotics and antimalarials. Secondary screening confirmed the sensitivity of MDA16 cells to 13 of 18 (72%) selected compounds. Additional work has determined the sensitivity of other breast cancer and colorectal and prostate cancer cell lines to selected drugs and examined mechanisms of action.