Dear Colleague,
One important lesson we have learned from our work in personalizing care for oncology patients is that there are many more considerations in implementing care aside from the obvious premises of targeted therapies, companion diagnostics, and next-generation sequencing. There is an ever-broadening array of considerations that goes into providing optimal care to an individual patient at the appropriate time. Our diverse editorial lineup in this issue provides evidence of this fact.
We present a discussion with Suso J. Platero, PhD, in our Interview with the Innovators series. Dr Platero provides his perspective as a researcher at Janssen Pharmaceuticals on the front lines of scientific discoveries that can ultimately impact oncology care. This all-important work represents the genesis of our ability to continue to improve care, and we are pleased to have had the opportunity to interview Dr Platero.
It is imperative to recognize the regulatory component of personalized care. Michael Shea, Jeff Allen, PhD, and Ellen Sigal, PhD, from Friends of Cancer Research highlight the history of legislation that created the regulatory framework overseeing products in personalized medicine.
An area that has recently been elevated in importance is that of genetic counseling. With improvements in our ability to screen more people for genetic mutations, this field is on the forefront of prevention and treatment. In this issue, you will find Ms Radford’s paper on the evolving phenotype of Li-Fraumeni syndrome.
We continue our coverage of immunotherapies as an integral part of precision medicine’s approach to treating cancer patients. This month we explore immunotherapies in pancreatic cancer in the hope of shedding light on the coming therapeutics in this historically difficult-to-treat disease.
As always, we welcome your letters to the editor with comments on the current articles, your submissions to the publication, or questions for our board. We look forward to hearing from you at editorial@personalizedmedonc.com.
Sincerely,
Al B. Benson III, MD, FACP, FASCO
Co-editor in Chief
Personalized Medicine in Oncology