Abstract: Methods of predicting whether an anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (“EGFr”)-specific binding agent treatment will be efficacious in treating cancer, and methods of treating patients with anti-EGFr-specific binding agents, are provided.

Abstract: The invention relates to an indidualized and personalized diagnosis and therapy of cancer based on specific molecular alterations which occur in specific tumor tissue of specific tumor patient populations. The therapy and diagnostic is based on the findings that proliferation and tumor growth of specific EGFR bearing tumor tissue expressing an amplified EGFR gene copy number may be abolished by anti-EGFR antibodies, while other individual molecular alterations such as mutations occurring in tumor tissues are unaffected by the same anti-EGFR antibody treatment.

Abstract: The present application relates to K-ras mutations, to polynucleotides encoding mutant K-ras polypeptides, and to methods of identifying K-ras mutations. The present application also relates to B-raf mutations, to polynucleotides encoding mutant B-raf polypeptides, to vectors containing those polynucleotides, and to methods of identifying B-raf mutations. The present application also relates to methods of diagnosing cancer; and methods and kits for predicting the usefulness of anti-EGFr specific binding agents in the treatment of tumors.

Abstract: Methods of predicting whether an anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (“EGFr”)-specific binding agent treatment will be efficacious in treating cancer, and methods of treating patients with anti-EGFr-specific binding agents, are provided.

Abstract: Protein kinases are important signaling molecules involved in tumorigenesis. Mutational analysis of the human tyrosine kinase gene family (98 genes) identified somatic alterations in ?20% of colorectal cancers, with the majority of mutations occurring in NTRK3, FES, GUCY2F and a previously uncharacterized tyrosine kinase gene called MCCK/MLK4. Most alterations were in conserved residues affecting key regions of the kinase domain. These data represent a paradigm for the unbiased analysis of signal transducing genes in cancer and provide useful targets for therapeutic intervention.

Abstract: Among the genes identified, in a comparison of the global gene expression profile of metastatic colorectal cancer to that of primary cancers, benign colorectal tumors, and normal colorectal epithelium, the PRL-3 protein tyrosine phosphatase gene was of particular interest. It was expressed at high levels in each of 18 cancer metastases studied but at lower levels in non-metastatic tumors and normal colorectal epithelium. In three of twelve metastases examined, multiple copies of the PRL-3 gene were found within a small amplicon located at chromosome 8q24.3. These data suggest that the PRL-3 gene is important for colorectal cancer metastasis and provides a new therapeutic target for these intractable lesions.

Abstract: The present invention relates to peptides and peptidomimetic compounds and pharmaceutical compositions containing them as useful pharmacological agents in the control or treatment of proliferative diseases such as cancer, against tumor growing and/or tumoral metastasis, and psoriasis and in the control or treatment of inflammatory, allergic, autoimmune, viral, and cardiovascular diseases. These new compounds have the unique property to inhibit the recognition of several phosphotyrosine containing motifs within all the cellular receptors and cytosolic transducers by a wide spectrum of SH2 domains contained in cytosolic transducers and other effector proteins laying along different pathways of the signal transduction process and with a particularly high affinity for the SH2 domain of the adaptor transducer Grb2, a key element along the pathway to mitogenesis and motogenesis, this last activity leading to invasiveness and to metastasis.