Circulating Tumour DNA as a liquid biopsy for melanoma I Dr Stephen Wong

DR STEPHEN WONG
Senior Research Officer,  Molecular Biomarkers and Translational Genomics Lab
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research

Melanoma has the highest incidence in Australia and causes most skin cancer deaths. While treatments for melanoma patients have significantly improved over recent years, we critically lack biomarkers that can accurately decide if a patient will respond or not to treatment, identify the emergence of acquired treatment resistance and what the best treatment option is when resistance occurs.

Cell-free circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) containing tumor-specific alterations can be identified in the plasma of cancer patients, providing a minimally-invasive liquid biopsy alternative to tissue biopsies.  The analysis of ctDNA through genomic-based approaches can allow real-time monitoring of treatment responses and disease kinetics from a simple blood test that is safe, robust and easy to perform at regular intervals during therapy.

This seminar will highlight work from our laboratory to understand how ctDNA analysis can provide new insights into the evolving genomic landscape of a melanoma during treatment, identify and characterise the emergence of treatment resistance and guide therapeutic decisions in melanoma patients.

Dr Stephen Wong is a postdoctoral researcher at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre specialising in cancer genomics and molecular diagnostics. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow and a Victorian Cancer Agency Mid-Career Fellow. His research focuses on identifying and characterising novel molecular biomarkers in melanoma and in other malignancies.