Dr. Jeffrey Wrana, Senior Investigator at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, is internationally recognized for his cancer research. Dr. Wrana has proven that cancer involves a complex network of pathways that work together to misregulate cells and cause disease.

“We look at the organization of the network from a global scale," says Dr. Wrana. "If you step back, you might suddenly see connections that otherwise don't normally exist.”

In February 2009, Dr. Wrana unveiled a new technology tool that analyzes breast cancer tumours to determine a patient’s best treatment options. The technology, called DyNeMo, analyzes networks of proteins in cancer cells, and can predict with more than 80 per cent accuracy a patient’s chance of recovering from breast cancer.

“Our hope with this technology is to eventually provide individualized analysis to breast cancer patients and their oncologists so that they are better informed and empowered to select a treatment best suited to them,” says Dr. Wrana.

Dr. Wrana describes the cellular networks like those in computer technology – or even in social interactions.

“Within cells, including cancer cells, thousands of proteins form thousands of interactions. These protein interactions form networks. There are many examples of networks that scientists study, from social networks (i.e. how we get the famous six degrees of separation) to the Internet.”

A network of proteins is the complex combination of interactions made by proteins within cells. It’s the differences in the dynamic structure of protein interaction networks that Wrana and his team used to predict a breast cancer patient’s chances of survival.

“We noticed that the structure of the protein interaction networks is different in tumors from patients that survive breast cancer versus those who succumb to the disease. Now we can use those differences in the protein interaction network to predict the prognosis of a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient.”

In the future, this tool may be used to analyze other types of cancer and could be used to predict an individual’s response to particular drugs. Dr. Wrana and his team are also investigating ways of applying the software to helping physicians treat patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

“This research brings us one step closer to delivering individualized medicine in which healthcare professionals will be able to provide more accurate and personalized diagnoses and treatments,” says Dr. Jim Woodgett, Director of Research for the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital.

To bring this technology to patients, Mount Sinai Hospital is working to partner with the biotechnology industry, and estimates that the DyNeMo tool will be available to healthcare providers within the next five years.