Last week, it was reported in both The Cancer Letter and the Houston Chronicle that The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center had closed a deal to sublicense intellectual property to two pharmaceutical firms, Intrexon and Ziopharm Oncology. There is nothing terribly unusual about that.
A new study indicates that the risk of developing cancer in some types of tissue is based on the frequency of stem cell divisions, and therefore beyond individuals' control to minimize their own risks. As the study stated, a majority of these cancers develop due to random mutations of noncancerous stem cells; in other words, it's just “bad luck.”
The American Society of Clinical Oncologyannounced Jan. 21 that its CancerLinQ health information technology project will use the SAP HANA platform.
President Barack Obama called for innovation in genetic medicine, through the launch of a new initiative, in his State of the Union address Jan. 20.
The launch prices of anticancer drugs have increased substantially over time—even when adjusted for inflation and survival benefits—according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
On Jan. 9, 2015, The Cancer Letter reported that Duke University received information in early 2008 that called into question the validity of the methodology and results published by the Anil Potti research group. Potti, along with his mentor and co-author Joseph Nevins, had galvanized the world of cancer research in 2006 and 2007 with their reports of successful gene expression tests for directing cancer therapy, the “holy grail” of cancer research. The 2008 information came in the form of a letter from a third-year medical student, Brad Perez, who was working in Potti's lab. The letter, which does not seem to have been given any credence at the time, described with precision the problems that eventually resulted in the termination of clinical trials and the subsequent retractions, beginning in 2011, of at least ten (and counting) papers from major scientific journals.
Attorneys defending Duke University are preparing to argue that no patients were harmed in the institution's phase II clinical trials of genomic predictors that were later shown fraudulent.
At first glance, it's hard to imagine anything as obscure as a policy by a private contracting firm that runs the Medicare program in the Carolinas, Virginia and West Virginia.
Dorothy “Dottie” Thomas, wife and research partner to 1990 Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas, died Jan. 9, at her home near Seattle. She was 92.
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology called for a re-examination of the way research is funded in the U.S., in a report detailing the challenges facing researchers and the threats to continued progress in the field.
