Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

cureMEC has partnered with Dr. Taran Gujral at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to apply his innovative systems pharmacology-based drug screening platform to myoepithelial carcinoma. Dr. Gujral’s lab has developed a powerful approach that integrates high-throughput drug testing with computational modeling of cellular signaling networks, allowing researchers to see not only whether a drug works, but also how it works inside tumor cells.

To support this work, cureMEC has provided two MEC cell lines and a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model. By running these models through the platform, Dr. Gujral’s team will be able to systematically evaluate hundreds of compounds, identify promising candidates, and map the signaling pathways that MEC tumors rely on. This unique combination of functional testing and network-level analysis offers the potential to uncover drug vulnerabilities that traditional screening methods might miss.

Through this collaboration, MEC is being integrated into one of the most advanced rare cancer research platforms available today. The knowledge gained will help prioritize therapeutic strategies for patients, while also deepening the broader understanding of MEC biology.