Presently, the development of more effective therapies is hampered by the large
degree of tumor heterogeneity, both between different patients and in a single tumor.
The Ignatius laboratory is interested in understanding the effects
of tumor heterogeneity on relapse and resistance to therapies in Rhabdomyosarcoma and other sarcomas.
Interest in liquid biopsy has escalated in recent years due to the minimally invasive sampling method, potential to overcome the
challenges of tumor heterogeneity, and the potential for longitudinal monitoring of tumor burden through serial sampling.
The traditional
model of tumor heterogeneity suggests that sequential mutations over time lead to the emergence of fitter cells that continue to grow and take over the tumor — called the clonal selection model.