AACR 2013 Annual Meeting

Dr Knaul, a health economist and patient, talks to ecancertv at the annual AACR congress, Washington DC, 6-10 April 2013, about the costs of the worldwide cancer burden. Economics can be a factor but also social factors such as over regulation of pain alleviating drugs, and up to date training in less economically developed countries. Dr Knaul calls for improved cancer care at the most basic level in developing countries.

Dr Charles Swanton talks with ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual meeting in Washington DC about understanding how representative biopsies are in mapping the entire genomic landscape of primary and metastasised tumours. Through using parallel clinical trials and integrative functional genomic approaches to develop new predictive tools to enable the optimal stratification of patients for defined therapeutic approaches, research can move closer to understanding how this impacts survival resistance to therapy. By identifying therapeutic approaches to target distinct patterns of genome instability Dr Swanton’s laboratory has demonstrated that chromosomal instability appears to be one of the principal drivers of multi-drug resistance and poor prognosis in solid tumours.

Dr Maurizio Scaltriti talks with ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about hyper activation of the PI3 kinase pathway and its prevalence in breast and head and neck cancer subtypes. Many inhibitors currently inhibit cell activity on many different levels, but recent findings in preclinical and phase I studies reveal that, while they do inhibit this pathway, their affect is limited. Complications predominantly include toxicity and tumours cells overcoming inhibition. The new types of inhibitors have a large therapeutic window, but those that are close to clinical use, such as alpha inhibitors, will be used in combination with other agents rather than as a single agent.

Dr John Mendelsohn discusses the goals of the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Medicine and their aim to set up a system that will allow for the analysis of every patient’s when standard therapy does not work. This analysis will result in the discovery of new genetic, RNA or protein abnormalities for potential targeted therapy. The MD Anderson Cancer Center Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy supports preclinical research and clinical trials where tumour biopsies are analysed for abnormal genes and gene products to promote the development of new targeted agents.

Dr Lowy talks to ecancertv at the annual AACR congress, Washington DC, 6-10 April 2013, about targeting certain oncogenes such as tumour suppressor gene DLC1, and short-term and long-term approaches to the prevention of HPV-associated cancers. DR Lowy also discusses the potential druggability of the RAS protein.

Dr Suzanne Topalian talks with ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual meeting in Washington DC about the power of the immune system to combat melanoma and other cancers in combination with other treatments such as chemotherapy and targeted drugs.

Dr Ragin talks to ecancertv at the annual AACR congress, Washington DC, 6-10 April 2013, about disparities breast cancer biology by ancestry. European-American (EA) woman have a higher overall incidence of breast cancer than African American (AA) women, yet AA woman have poorer survival outcome, even after controlling for factors related to socioeconomic status. AA women are diagnosed at a younger age with aggressive breast tumours, more frequently ‘triple negative’ due to lack of estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER and PR) expression and negative for HER-2 amplification, as well as, high proliferative indices. These ‘triple negative’ breast cancers are most lethal since hormonal- or anti-HER2 therapy are not effective; therefore, fewer treatment options are available. Currently, the reason for racial disparities in breast cancer biology and early age of onset in AA women is largely unknown. Future analyses include screening a larger cohort of 1000 FFPE tumour DNAs to effectively compare differential methylation with age at onset, and a variety of tumour characteristics and risk factors. Funded by 1 R01 CA133264 to CBA, KD, and MJH, and by Cancer Center Support Grant CA16056 to RPCI.

Dr Samantha Sobus talks with ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about the continuation of nicotine use during radiation therapy. Continuing to smoke after cancer diagnosis has dramatic effects on both treatment and outcome, including drug resistance, tumour growth and increasing side effects of treatment.

Dr Laura Soucek talks to ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about the inhibition of the Myc pathway in mouse models. The work conducted by the Mouse Models of Cancer Therapy group at the VHIO, led by Dr Laura Soucek, shows that Myc can be controlled and inhibited through a mutant called Omomyc that hijacks Myc and prevents it from acting. In the study, multiple lung tumours were induced in the mouse (up to 200 tumours in each individual) and Myc inhibition episodes were achieved by activating Omomyc expression for 4-weeks, followed by 4-week rest periods. This therapy - known as metronomic therapy - was maintained for more than a year, regularly checking tumour progress in each mouse.

Dr John Mendelsohn talks with ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about the goals of the WIN Consortium and collaboration between clinical oncologists and pharmaceutical research scientists. Dr Mendelsohn explains the goals of the consortium and how they aim to develop procedures and a knowledge base for clinicians in order for their treatments to be most effective.

Dr Ragin talks to ecancertv at the annual AACR congress, Washington DC, 6-10 April 2013, about disparities in cancer outcomes by race. Some cancers have higher rates in certain populations, this can be due to poor socio-economic status but also can have a biological basis. Dr Ragin discusses her work with the African-Carribean Cancer Consortium which carries out epidemiological research and notes how disparities might be addressed.

Dr Kenneth Tsai talks to ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about his research on squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) for which he was awarded the Sixth Annual Landon Foundation-AACR INNOVATOR Award for Cancer Prevention Research.