SMMART® featured at the Knight School

Researchers Rochelle Williams-Belizaire (seated) and Brett Johnson, Ph.D.
 (standing) presenting about SMMART
Rochelle Williams-Belizaire (seated) and Brett Johnson, Ph.D. (standing) presenting SMMART, photo courtesy of Darsen Campbell-Prissel

The SMMART® Program was featured as the November 19 Knight School lecture. Knight School lectures are free community-facing science talks as told by Knight Cancer researchers, clinicians, and patients. 

Precision oncology assistant director for research collaborations Rochelle Williams-Belizaire and SMMART scientific program manager Brett Johnson, Ph.D., joined to introduce the audience to the innovative cancer clinical trials platform.

SMMART, which stands for Serial Measurements of Molecular and Architectural Responses to Therapy, is the flagship project of the Knight Cancer Institute Precision Oncology program.

The program’s goal is to understand why cancer therapies stop working and to identify new treatments that last longer and allow a better quality of life than current, standard treatments. The program began with helping metastatic breast, prostate, and pancreatic patients as well as refractory AML, and is now expanding into other disease types.

“The SMMART program takes what we learned in the lab and puts it into the clinic to create personalized treatment for our patients,” Williams-Belizaire told the Knight School audience.

To do this, teams of scientists using novel imaging and diagnostic techniques analyze data received from repeated (serial) patient biopsies to make treatment changes over time.

“There’s a need to understand not just a patient’s cancer as it’s initially presented, but to follow that patient over time and understand how the cancer is adapting and changing so we can adequately give that patient therapy so it will continue to be effective,” Johnson said.

Learn more about SMMART

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