project-idea

SrcMatch: A Biomarker-to-Inhibitor Pairing Tool for Src-Driven Cancers

Six different Src inhibitors showed highly heterogeneous efficacy across OSCC cell lines, with sensitivity correlated to which oncogenic signaling pathways were active — suggesting that pathway activation profile, not just Src expression, should drive drug selection.

The fundamental insight from this study is that Src inhibitor failure isn't random — it's predictable from the tumor's oncogenic signaling context. SrcMatch would be a web tool that takes a tumor's molecular profile (gene expression or mutation data) as input and predicts which Src inhibitors are most likely to be active, based on compiled preclinical sensitivity data across cell lines and tumor types.

The tool would aggregate published Src inhibitor sensitivity data (IC50s, response rates) across cancer cell lines and correlate them with upstream pathway activation signatures. Users — researchers or eventually clinicians — could input their tumor's RNA-seq or mutation profile and receive a ranked prediction of which inhibitors to try first, with supporting evidence from matched cell lines.

An initial version could be built using publicly available datasets (CCLE, GDSC) that already contain Src inhibitor sensitivity data alongside molecular profiles, without requiring new experiments. This would immediately be useful for lab groups studying Src-driven cancers beyond OSCC, including other head and neck cancers, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer.

Who Is This For?

Cancer researchers studying kinase inhibitors, computational biologists, and translational oncologists planning combination therapy studies.

Skills & Tools Needed

Python/R data analysis
CCLE/GDSC database access and parsing
Machine learning for biomarker-drug correlation
Web frontend development
Basic pharmacology and cancer signaling knowledge

Feasibility

medium — Public datasets provide a strong starting point; the main challenge is building a statistically robust correlation model with enough cell line coverage for reliable predictions.

Inspired by: Heterogeneous Sensitivity to Src Inhibitors in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Its Implications for Combination Therapy with Cisplatin

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