Lay summary
Tumour hypoxia is a major problem in head and neck cancer, promoting cancer growth and resistance to therapy, but providing an opportunity for tumour-selective therapeutic targeting. Evofosfamide is a prodrug in clinical development that is activated under hypoxia to kill tumour cells while sparing normal cells. However, not all patients respond to evofosfamide therapy. To address this issue, we will use head and neck cancer tumour models to develop a diagnostic test that can identify the tumours that are most likely to respond to evofosfamide based on the expression of genes that can promote sensitivity or resistance to evofosfamide. Following validation that our diagnostic test can predict the anticancer efficacy of evofosfamide in a new set of head and neck tumours, our long-term goal is to clinically develop the diagnostic test for use in head and neck cancer patients to identify the patients most likely to benefit from evofosfamide therapy.