After years of development, engineering, and enhancement, researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis have made available a software system that enables better detection of gene fusions. The system, called CICERO, offers additional insights into cancers as well as new targets...
Mustafa Raoof, MD, MS, a surgical oncologist and researcher specializing in gastrointestinal cancers at City of Hope, was recently awarded a Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Career Development Award (PanCAN) and a Young Investigator Award from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN). “I’m ...
Ludwig Cancer Research recently welcomed Juanita L. Merchant, MD, PhD, to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Merchant is a practicing clinician and an accomplished researcher at the University of Arizona, Tucson, where she is Professor and Chief of...
Considered the “guardian of the genome,” TP53 is the most commonly mutated gene in patients with cancer. TP53's normal function is to detect DNA damage and prevent cells from passing this damage on to daughter cells. When TP53 is mutated, the protein made from this gene, called p53, can no longer...
Carolyn J. Anderson, PhD, has been named the 2020 recipient of the Paul C. Aebersold Award. Dr. Anderson is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Radiology, Bioengineering, Chemistry, and Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The award was...
Joann Sweasy, PhD, who has served as Interim Director for the past 9 months, has been named Director of the University of Arizona Cancer Center and the inaugural holder of the Nancy C. and Craig M. Berge Endowed Chair for the Director of the Cancer Center. As Director, Dr. Sweasy will establish the ...
Yang Shi, PhD, recently joined the Oxford Branch of the United Kingdom’s Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Shi, who comes to Ludwig from Harvard University, is a leader in the field of epigenetics, which explores how chemical modifications made to chromatin control the organization and...
Kicking off the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer earlier this week, Anthony Fauci, MD, gave the keynote lecture, “Coronavirus Infections: More Than Just the Common Cold.” As Dr. Fauci told listeners, “[COVID-19]—and other infectious...
Beth Levine, MD, Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology, Director of the Center for Autophagy Research, and Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern), and an investigator at the Howard Hughes ...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed his colleague Brian J. Bolwell, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Among other things, Dr. Bolwell discussed his...
At the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, Nathalie LeVasseur, MD, BSc, FRCPC, received the Annual Meeting Merit Award for a project titled, “Whole-Genome Sequencing in Metastatic Breast Cancer: Lessons Learned From the BC Cancer Personalized Oncogenomics Program.” Along with her clinical work, Dr....
The world is grappling with a pandemic and we are all adjusting to a new reality. Fewer handshakes, more masks. Fewer hugs, more fear. COVID-19 has tested us, challenged us, changed us. It’s changed the way we look, the way we work, the way we socialize. It’s changed us, but it can’t stop us. It...
The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) has announced three recipients of the 2020 Richard V. Smalley, MD, Memorial Award and Lectureship, the society’s highest honor: they include Lieping Chen, MD, PhD, Gordon Freeman, PhD, and Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD. The research conducted by Drs....
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) announced the opening of a Gastrointestinal (GI) Care Neighborhood, a new cancer clinic aimed at improving the experience for patients with GI cancers, which features dedicated GI-related cancer care services on one floor of SCCA’s South Lake Union campus. “We...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Hackensack Meridian Health recently announced they have formed an Immunology Research Collaboration. Through this joint initiative, researchers can apply for funding to support innovative investigations exploring the power of the immune system and...
Baylor College of Medicine recently announced that Ganesh Rao, MD, has been named the new Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. In this role, he also will hold the Marc J. Shapiro Endowed Chair at Baylor and will serve as the Neurosurgery Service Line Chief across the Catholic Health...
In an article published in JCO Oncology Practice, David Waterhouse, MD, MPH, of Oncology Hematology Care, Cincinnati, Ohio, and colleagues presented the results of a recent ASCO survey of clinical programs on the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of oncology clinical...
The global toll of breast cancer on women is staggering. In 2018, nearly two million new breast cancer cases were diagnosed, an increase of more than 20% since 2008,1 and mortality rates have increased by 14%, bringing the annual number of deaths worldwide from the cancer to more than 611,625.2...
The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center—Jefferson Health (SKCC) recently announced that Andrew E. Aplin, PhD, was being recognized with the Melanoma Research Foundation Humanitarian Award. Dr. Aplin is the Kalbach-Newton Professor in Cancer Research, Enterprise Associate Director for Basic Research, and...
Geneticist and physician Francis Collins, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and career-long advocate for the integration of faith and reason, was recently announced as the 2020 Templeton Prize Laureate. Dr. Collins was selected as the 2020 Laureate by the prize judges...
The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was jointly awarded to three researchers. Their discoveries paved the way for promising new strategies to treat anemia, cancer, and many other diseases. One of the three Nobel Laureates is William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, who continues his research at his...
The Revolutions of 1989 that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond began in Poland. Perhaps if not for that social upheaval, the career of internationally renowned oncologist Jacek Jassem, MD, PhD, would have taken a very different path. Dr. Jassem had fled...
F. Stephen Hodi, MD, Director of the Melanoma Center and the Center for Immuno-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, was born in Framingham and grew up in the town of Acton, a western suburb of Boston. “My dad was an engineer, and I was influenced by puzzle-solving and using...
Internationally recognized immune-oncology melanoma expert Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, FASCO, was born and reared in Staten Island, not far from where he would shape his noted career at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York, New York. “I went to Princeton University and, during my ...
In 2019, at the ASCO Annual Meeting, Ian Tannock, MD, PhD, DSc, FASCO, was honored with the Allen S. Lichter Visionary Award for his contributions to the fields of genitourinary and breast cancers as well as his efforts to optimize clinical trial design. The title of his lecture was “Clinical...
When oncology luminary Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, MD, was in her early teens, her youngest sister, Teri, developed acute lymphocytic leukemia at age 5. Dr. O’Shaughnessy, the oldest of four girls, recalled that her sister’s struggle with the disease had a profound effect on her worldview. “Teri went...
In 2003, Nina Kadan-Lottick, MD, MSPH, established the regional Yale HEROS multidisciplinary research and clinical program for long-term survivors of childhood cancer survivors, which is the first of its kind in Connecticut and one of the first in the United States. She intends the HEROS program to ...
In 1980, Paul G. Marks, MD, became the President and Chief Executive Officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), the oldest and largest private cancer center in the world. Over his 19-year reign, he is credited with setting MSK on a more scientific course by encouraging innovative...
The human drama within the oncology world is a never-ending story of triumph, tragedy, and all of the valiant efforts and human emotions in between. The doctor-patient relationship in oncology is deeper and longer than in most medical specialties due to the life-and-death stakes at play after a...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with John Craig Venter, PhD, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to human, microbial, and environmental genomic research. A...
City of Hope has announced the addition of pathologist Stanley Hamilton, MD, and researcher Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, to the National Medical Center in Duarte, California. Dr. Hamilton is a recognized leader in pathology who helped develop pathology and laboratory medicine into a world-class...
In an article published in Science, Lawrence Corey, MD; John R. Mascola, MD; Anthony S. Fauci, MD; and Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, describe the composition and aims of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-led Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) partnership....
A survey of American Cancer Society grantees found that about half reported their cancer research has been halted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Cancer Society reached out to all of its funded researchers to assess the state of their projects and collect information to guide...
Over the past decade, obesity has been linked to an increased risk and aggressiveness of numerous cancer types. Many biologic activities within adipose tissue change with obesity and may contribute to carcinogenesis and the initiation of cancer. To shed light on the current state of knowledge in...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) has approved funding for 79 research and training grants, totaling $36,165,100 in the first of two grant cycles for 2020. Grant applications were reviewed and approved remotely in light of the coronavirus epidemic. The grants will fund investigators at 59...
An article by Waterhouse et al in JCO Oncology Practice presented results of a recent ASCO survey of clinical programs exploring the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of oncology clinical trials. Results highlighted the numerous issues faced by the programs, steps that are...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is perhaps the biggest challenge health-care systems have ever had to face. As part of a series of interviews The ASCO Post is conducting with oncologists, we talked with Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, about the impact of COVID-19 on his practice and on the conduct...
Previous single-center studies have linked the gut microbiota (via stool sample analysis) to outcomes after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), such as overall mortality, transplant-related mortality, graft-vs-host disease, and graft-vs-host–related mortality.1-4 Although intriguing, these...
In this edition of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with hematologist Parameswaran Hari, MD, MRCP, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. In addition, Dr. Hari holds the Armand J. Quick/William F. Stapp Chair...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the first diagnostic test with a home collection option for COVID-19. Specifically, the FDA re-issued the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) COVID-19 RT-PCR Test to permit testing of samples...
Patients with localized colon cancer may benefit from a short course of neoadjuvant immunotherapy, according to findings from the exploratory phase II NICHE study published by Myriam Chalabi, MD, and colleagues in Nature Medicine. Study Results Forty patients with two colon cancer subtypes—either ...
Francesca Gany, MD, MS, Chief of the Immigrant Health and Cancer Disparities Service, and Tim Ahles, PhD, Director of the Neurocognitive Research Laboratory, both of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), along with Gilda Barabino, PhD, and Karen Hubbard, PhD, of the City College of New York ...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is dramatically affecting health-care systems. This is the first in a series of interviews The ASCO Post will conduct with oncologists, to learn what they and their cancer centers are doing to deal with the crisis. In this article, we talk with John Cole, MD, a...
The staff of The ASCO Post recognizes the steady flow of news on the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. Here, we've compiled a list of links to articles and resources on the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have a report you'd like to share, please e-mail it to us at editor@ascopost.com. Direct From ASCO:...
Although bacteria are predominant in the gastrointestinal tract, they also reside on and in other parts of the body, including some unexpected places, such as malignant tumors. There are numerous reports of this phenomenon, but most have not identified a functional role for the microbes. In the...
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) recently announced that Susan Band Horwitz, PhD, has been selected to receive the 2020 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research. Dr. Horwitz is being recognized for pioneering the understanding, at the molecular level, of the mechanisms...
ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have jointly published an update to a clinical practice guideline on estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor testing in breast cancer.1 The guideline for immunohistochemistry testing of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptors in patients...
A new study on hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that extremely rare, harmful genetic mutations present in healthy donors’ stem cells—though not causing health problems in the donors—may be passed on to patients with cancer...
Ludwig Cancer Research has announced the appointment of Douglas Hanahan, PhD, as a Distinguished Scholar at the Lausanne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. A molecular biologist and cancer researcher, Dr. Hanahan has made several seminal discoveries in cancer biology and...
In my 45 years of practicing hematology/oncology at a major urban academic medical center, I have observed a sea change in daily practice that contributes to physician burnout. Although the emotional stresses of caring for seriously ill people play a part in physician burnout, I find the daily...