By Sean Connolly, news correspondent

Raytheon Amphitheatre was packed to full capacity as students and professors came in droves to hear Dr. Ross Cagan speak about his cancer research last Thursday. Cagan has the ability to create personalized treatment models for patients by testing different treatment techniques on fruit flies.

“Can we find a drug that will make that tumor go away without killing the fly? ” Cagan said.

Cagan gives flies cancer through genetic mutation and then tries various treatments until he finds ones that work. The goal is to find the most effective treatment possible without attempting to learn exactly how the cancer works.

Cagan started his presentation with a brief overview of current cancer treatments, explaining that drugs used in cancer treatments today are not specified for an individual. The treatments can still be effective, but they work better on some patients than on others, and cancer treatments are often very damaging to patients’ bodies. Cagan offers what could perhaps be a better method.

Flies are good test subjects for several reasons. They can be easily genetically manipulated, which makes them perfect for studying specific cancers, Cagan said.

“You can turn any set of genes on or off, in any cell, at any stage you want,” he said. “Cancer is fundamentally a genetic disease.”

Cagan believes that scientists are able to find the genetic sequence of cancers. What Cagan does is take all of the mutated genes in a cancer and mutates the same genes in fruit flies.

By using genetic manipulation, Cagan can use treatments that target specific mutations related to cancer. This helps discover which specific genes need to be pinpointed to treat the disease. At the same time, he learns which genes are important to bodily functions and which will cause harm to the flies. Eventually, Cagan can find which mutated genes should be targeted, allowing the creation of a highly effective treatment.

Through studying the genetic makeup of the cancer within a specific patient, Cagan can locate the mutated genes and transfer them to flies.  He then tests a library of 1,200 FDA drugs on the fly, sometimes combining different drugs together, until he finds the most effective combination. The possible treatment is then experimented on mice, then on pigs and finally applied to the patient. The result is an extremely personalized cocktail of drugs that has a greater chance of working for the patient.

Cagan’s tests have resulted in the discovery of cancer drugs that are both highly effective and non-lethal. In 2012, his research helped one drug pass as the standard of care for a specific thyroid cancer.

“If I can convince you that [fruit fly research] is a good idea,” Cagan said, “I’ve probably done some pretty remarkable things.”

Photo by Christina Reynolds