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WCCS/EADO 2016 | What’s next in melanoma research on drug resistance?

Clemens Krepler, MD of the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, discusses the developments of the research on mouse models for melanoma. Prof. Kepler explains that the standard of care is increasingly BRAF plus MEK inhibition, which is a dual combination that is stronger despite using the same pathway, thus delaying the time taken until the tumor can develop resistance, with a survival rate of around 16 months. Material has been collected from these patients, in attempt to find out what the resistance mechanisms are, and building on this. The next direction is immuno-oncology, where a lot of patients are now treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Researchers are now using mice with a human immune system to see why exactly some patients respond while others do not; there are no biomarkers available right now. The field of humanized mice models is now emerging, where the ‘humanized’ mice do not have an immune system of their own and researchers are able to put in human stem cells and repopulate the mouse with a human immune system. Finally, Prof. Krepler highlights that although there are melanoma mouse models, they are not fully representative of the actual human disease. Therefore, he hopes that the models will be further developed within the next few years to aid and further melanoma research. Recorded at the 2016 World Congress on Cancers of the Skin (WCCS) and the Congress of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology (EADO) in Vienna, Austria.