Science Club – OncoPharm project

Our Science Club’s regular meetings provide an opportunity for our team to review the latest developments in research. The most recent meeting focused on the OncoPharm project.

Our main focus this time was acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Unfortunately, successful treatment for patients with this disease is not always guaranteed. Everything depends on a very delicate cellular balance. Factors such as how well the drug can enter the cell, how effectively it activates within it, and conversely, how quickly it is eliminated by the body all play a role. Cancer cells are often able to defend themselves and build up resistance. Investigating these mechanisms of drug resistance is therefore one of our main tasks.

The project’s output is intended to be a prototype of a functional diagnostic kit that operates on the proven principle of real-time PCR. The main purpose of the diagnostic kit is to help identify, in a timely and accurate manner, patients at high risk of standard therapy failing. This could significantly help with the optimization and selection of more appropriate treatments in the future.

During the meeting, we went through our entire current “workflow.” We have successfully progressed from the careful selection of the right markers and the design of testing systems to the testing itself. We also devoted a significant portion of the discussion to ensuring that the final kit for laboratories is as practical as possible. We are striving to develop a format that is not only highly stable but also ready for immediate use.

Higher-quality and more accessible diagnostics are an essential foundation for better and more targeted care.

Anna Pospíšilová

Bára Staroštíková

Leona Hofmeisterová