Dr. He Discusses Potential Therapeutic Uses for GTF2I L424+ Thymic Cancers

Yongfeng He, PhD, is an instructor of cancer biology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, New York.

He, along with Giuseppe Gianccone, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and associate director of clinical research at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell, discovered that the presence of the GTF2I L424H mutation in thymic epithelial cells induced thymic tumors in mouse models. The mouse tumors shared many molecular characteristics with type B1 and B2 human thymic tumors.

He said that GTF2I L424H is a transcription factor so it is unlikely to be a therapeutic target. However, this discovery may be the first step in developing a systemic treatment for patients with thymic cancers.