Apostolos Klinakis

Continuing the research path he began as a post-doc in Argiris Efstratiadis’s lab at
Columbia University, former JCCF Fellow Apostolos Klinakis says modeling breast
cancer in mice takes real patience. “If you have an idea and need to make a new mouse
model, this might take three years. So after three years, if you’ve made a mistake, you
have to start over on that idea.”

Currently, the research underlying Klinakis’s work is about IGF1R, a gene fundamental
to growth and development: “We tried to use the mouse as a clinical model and test
inhibitors to the IGF1R. And in fact, Columbia University created a patent from that and
we were trying to license that to a company that would try to collect the money that is
required for clinical trials. But that was right at the time that the financial crises started in
the U.S..”

Now an investigator with his own lab at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the
Academy of Athens, Klinakis’s patience is starting to pay off. As part of a consortium
recently awarded a €2.5 million grant, Klinakis will use new mouse models to screen for
drugs that target the proteins expressed by the mutant PI3K gene, a mutation implicated
in a large percentage of all cancers because the mutated protein keeps cells from self-
destructing. “It’s one of the hallmarks of cancer,” says Klinakis, “you cannot get cancer
unless you prevent bad cells from committing suicide.” Referring to the relationship
between this work and his past work at Columbia University, Klinakis says, “So, you can
imagine it as a cascade: the PI3K is downstream of the IGF1R.”

Still, Klinakis says, he will have to be patient: “Our work is with genetically engineered
mice. They are forced to get tumors. It’s not like in people.” So success in a mouse
model does not mean success with breast cancer. Klinakis says, “It takes more than just
basic research like mine.”