Angelo Di Leo, MD, PhD

2009-2010 BCRF Projects:
1) In individuals with metastatic breast cancer, anti-cancer therapy is used to try to control the disease. It is critical that individuals are spared ineffective treatment and excessive toxicity. Our current tools however do not allow us to identify which treatments will be the most effective or particularly toxic for any specific individual. Metabolomics is a science which is quite new in the cancer field. It is based on assessment of thousands of metabolites, the small particles that make up our metabolism. We know that cancer and drugs change our metabolism. This project will explore whether these changes can be used to provide information on outcome, response to treatment and drug toxicity, and hence improve our care for individuals with metastatic breast cancer.

2) With Co-investigator: Monica Fornier, MD, Breast Cancer Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

A collaborative project between Drs. Di Leo and Fornier focuses on metabolomics, a new field of cancer research. This technology allows for the concomitant evaluation of hundreds of small molecules (metabolites) from blood samples of cancer patients. The tumor produces several types of metabolites that can be easily detected in the blood of cancer patients by the metabolomic technology. The researchers aim to identify a group of metabolites from the blood of breast cancer patients, associated with a high risk of tumor recurrence.

To identify metabolites associated with the risk of cancer recurrence could be a major step forward in the fight against breast cancer and would allow the identification of patients who are still at risk of tumor recurrence although the cancer has been removed during breast cancer surgery. This research will be the first worldwide to test the value of metabolomics as a tool defining breast cancer outcome in each individual patient. The project will be carried out thanks to the collaboration between the Breast Medicine Service of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the "Sandro Pitigliani" Medical Oncology Unit, Hospital of Prato – Istituto Toscano Tumori, Italy. Two hundred patients will participate in this project. First results will be available by the end of 2009. The study is proceeding well as originally planned; it needs refinement and assessment in more patients.

Bio:
Angelo Di Leo is currently Head of the Sandro Pitigliani Medical Oncology Unit, and Chair of the Oncology Department, at the Hospital of Prato, Istituto Toscano Tumori, Italy, a position which he took up in September 2003. The center is affiliated to the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG).

Dr Di Leo graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Palermo (Italy) in 1988, received his postgraduate diploma in Medical Oncology from the University of Pavia (Italy) in 1992 and in 1996, received his European certification in Medical Oncology, which was issued by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). Dr. Di Leo received his training at the National Cancer Institute in Milan, where he worked for seven years until 1996. From 1996 to 2003 he worked at the Chemotherapy Unit of the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, where in 2000 he was appointed Associate Director and Medical Director of the BREAST. Dr. Di Leo was also Associate Member of the Oncology course teaching faculty at the Free University of Brussels.

Dr. Di Leo's main field of research is breast cancer and he has been involved in the coordination of a number of international, pivotal Phase III trials designed to evaluate the efficacy of new adjuvant therapies for breast cancer. Dr. Di Leo is also largely involved in the evaluation of molecular markers with potential predictive value in the treatment of breast cancer patients. Dr. Di Leo is a member of the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Cooperative Group (EBCTCG) steering committee and he has been a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) grants selection committee (2006-2009). Dr. Di Leo is the author of several articles that have been published in peer-reviewed international journals and has lectured extensively at national and international meetings.