Molecular Biology and Understanding Tumors
Dr. Stephen Lessnick: Understanding the molecular biology of sarcomas is important because it's the molecular biology that really dictates how the tumors develop. And what I mean by that is: if you think mechanistically, the development of a tumor is really a process, and this is dictated by the molecular biology.
In the case of Ewing's sarcoma, for example, there's a translocation. That translocation does something. And it's really our hope that understanding the mechanism by which that translocation operates is going to allow us to identify, not only diagnostic and prognostic information, but most importantly new therapeutic approaches to the tumor. So the idea is that if you really understand a tumor, you will be able to put a drug into it and stop tumor growth.