Smart Patients cofounder Roni Zeiger, MD, believes the next tipping point in medicine includes tapping into the knowledge created by networks of engaged patients. To this end, Dr Zeiger partnered with Gilles Frydman, a pioneer of online health communities and founder of the Association of Cancer Online Resources, to create [ Read More ]
A New Approach to Cell Culturing
An Interview with James Lim, PhD, of Xcell Biosciences
The drug discovery process has long been characterized by very low success rates in moving compounds from early-stage studies to clinically proven therapeutics. A confounding factor in the process is the inability to conduct high-throughput screening in an environment that truly mirrors human physiology. These early-stage tests are typically performed [ Read More ]
Prevention Is the Key to Bone Health in Patients with Prostate Cancer
An interview with The Urology Group, Cincinnati, OH
In this interview, members of The Urology Group discussed the importance of bone health in patients with prostate cancer, including details about the guidelines they use, the impact of prevention, as well as the different therapies they use in their practice. PMO How common are skeletal-related events (SREs) in patients [ Read More ]
Early Recurrence Detection: Analyzing DNA from Circulating Tumor Cells and Circulating Cell-Free DNA
An Interview with Paul W. Dempsey, PhD, and Paul Y. Song, MD, of Cynvenio
Cynvenio is a cancer diagnostics company offering their LiquidBiopsy technology to provide molecular analysis of cancer biomarkers in blood. The company purports that molecular diagnostic approaches to cancer detection and monitoring can benefit from their multiple-template strategy that analyzes DNA from circulating tumor cells (ctcDNA) and circulating cell-free DNA (ccfDNA) [ Read More ]
Oncology Nurse Navigators: A Growing Trend in Oncology Practices Proving to Play a Critical Role in Patient Care
An Interview with Lillie D. Shockney, RN, BS, MAS, of Johns Hopkins University
The terms “nurse navigator,†“patient navigator,†and “lay navigator†are slowly becoming part of the vernacular in oncology circles. In turn, nurse navigation is evolving into its own distinct field within oncology nursing. The goal of a nurse navigator is to successfully navigate patients through the maze of their oncology [ Read More ]
NCI-MATCH: A Paradigm Shift in the Evolution of Personalized Medicine Trials An Interview with Douglas R. Lowy, MD, of the National Cancer Institute
Precision medicine has become a high-profile term with equally as high expectations. With the president’s announcement last year of a Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) and his more recent calling for a “moonshot†to cure cancer headed by Vice President Biden, the march toward personalizing care continues to gain momentum. In [ Read More ]
Personalizing Oncology Care and the Quest for Companion Diagnostics: A Researcher’s Perspective An Interview with Suso J. Platero, PhD, of Janssen Pharmaceuticals
Today we interview Dr Suso J. Platero, whose research is probing the frontiers of next-generation sequencing, transcriptional profiling, and proteomics in the validation of biomarkers for lung cancers. In his 2009 book, Molecular Pathology in Drug Discovery and Development, Dr Platero makes the case for clinicians and researchers working together [ Read More ]
Cancer Stem Cell Research: A New Frontier in the Fight Against Cancer: An Interview with Stanton L. Gerson, MD, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Zev A. Wainberg, MD, University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Gerson is Director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Shiverick Professor of Hematological Oncology and Founding Director of the Ohio Wright Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, now called the National Center for Regenerative Medicine.Dr. Wainberg is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, [ Read More ]
The Current Landscape in Melanoma Treatment
An Interview with Jeffrey Infante, MD, of Sarah Cannon Research InstituteThe COMBI-d and COMBI-v trials showed that treating BRAF V600 mutation–positive metastatic melanoma with the combination of daÂbrafenib plus trametinib resulted in a significant increase in overall survival and a 33% reduction in the risk of progression or death compared [ Read More ]
High-Dose Interleukin-2 as a Second-Line Option in Metastatic Melanoma
An Interview with Elizabeth I. Buchbinder, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Many patients with melanoma have benefited from the recent employment of therapeutic agents targeting cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) such as ipilimumab and the immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) agents targeting the programmed death-1/ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) pathway. As more patients are [ Read More ]