Molecular Determinants of Head and Neck Cancer

Barbara Burtness, M.D. is Associate Director for Clinical Research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. She is also a co-leader of the Keystone Program in Head and Neck Cancer. As Chair of the Head and Neck Committee in the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and a member of the NCI Head and Neck Steering Committee, she helps shape the national agenda for research on all stages of head and neck cancer.

Erica Golemis, Ph.D. is the Deputy Chief Scientific Officer at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. She is also the Co-Leader of Developmental Therapeutics and Co-Leader of the Head and Neck Cancer Keystone at Fox Chase. Her research seeks to define the changes in cell signaling that occur as tumors spread by metastasis and develop resistance to drugs, with the ultimate goal of inhibiting these processes.

Squamous cell cancers of the head and neck (SCCHN), also known as head and neck cancers (HNC) encompass malignancies of the oral cavity, larynx, nasopharynx and pharynx, and are diagnosed in over 500,000 patients worldwide each year, accounting for 5% of all malignancies. In the past several years, there have been significant developments in understanding of HNC. It is now recognized that although alcohol and tobacco use has represented the likely predominant cause of SCCHN, the incidence of a second class of SCCHN related to oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is increasing, with a four-fold increase in the past 2 decades, and now thought to represent up to 30% of cases. The first effective target for SCCHN, the EGFR-targeting antibody cetuximab, was approved as recently as in 2006; since then, a growing body of research has identified additional signaling pathways as important in disease pathogenesis, and in resistance to treatment. Proteins such as c-Met, Src, and HER2 are emerging as new therapeutic targets, with a considerable ferment in the clinical trial community. As a capstone of research progress, 2011 marked the first reports of high throughput sequencing of SCCHN tumors, with these efforts identifying unexpected players such as Notch as frequent subject of mutation, spawning new hypotheses for future research. This book will be of interest to researchers who are interested in better understanding the biology of head and neck cancers, with the goals of better designing therapies, identifying risk factors, or investigating the molecular basis of the disease.

This book will benefit researchers interested in better understanding the biology of squamous cell cancers of the head and neck (SCCHN), with the goals of designing therapies, identifying risk factors and investigating the molecular basis of the disease.

Summarize the unique pathobiology of head and neck cancers

Chapter 1: Overview: The Pathobiology of Head and Neck Cancer

Chapter 2: Human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck cancer and the Wnt signaling pathway.....Theodoros Rampias and Amanda Psyrri

Chapter 3: EGFR Inhibitors as Therapeutic Agents in Head and Neck Cancer.....Hanqing Liu, Jennifer R. Cracchiolo, Tim N. Beck, Ilya G. Serebriiskii, and Erica A. Golemis

Chapter 4: The Role of HGF/c-MET in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.....Tanguy Y. Seiwert, Tim N. Beck and Ravi Salgia
Chapter 5: Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptors in Head and Neck Cancer.....Steven A. Rosenzweig and Casey O. Holmes

Chapter 6: The PI3K Signaling Pathway in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma......Jason D. Howard and Christine H. Chung

Chapter 7: Jak/STAT Signaling in HNC.....Bhavana S. Vangara and Jennifer R. Grandis

Chapter 8: TGFbeta regulates EMT in head and neck cancer.....Jill M. Neiman and Xiao-Jing Wang

Chapter 9: p53 in Head and Neck Cancer.....Jong-Lyel Roh and Wayne M. Koch

Chapter 10: DNA damage proteins and response to therapy in head and neck cancer.....Ranee Mehra and Ilya G. Serebriiskii

Chapter 11: Hypoxia and radioresistance in head and neck cancer.....Peiwen Kuo and Quynh-Thu Le

Chapter 12: The Wnt -catenin Signaling Circuitry in Head and Neck Cancer.....Rogerio M. Castilho and J. Silvio Gutkind

Chapter 13: Sequencing HNC: Emergence of Notch Signaling......Curtis R. Pickering, Thomas J. Ow, Jeffrey N. Myers

Chapter 14: Gene Expression in HNC.....Michael F Ochs and Joseph A Califano

Chapter 15: Epidemiology of HPV in Head and Neck Cancer; variant strains, discrete protein function.....Camille C.R. Ragin, Jeffrey C. Liu

Chapter 16: Projections: Novel Therapies for HPV-Negative Cancers of the Head and Neck.....Barbara Burtness