News Releases

Resources for Media Covering the American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting June 4-8, 2010, from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

TIME named Edna Foa, PhD, to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Dr. Foa’s career has been devoted to understanding the psychopathology of anxiety disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the development of short-term, evidenced-based treatments for these disorders. Her theoretical and empirical work has been highly influential among researchers and clinicians in the U.S. and abroad.

Garret FitzGerald, MD, director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the 2010 Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics. The Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics is given annually to recognize and stimulate outstanding research in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics—basic laboratory or clinical research that has had, or potentially will have, a major impact on the pharmacological treatment of disease.

This symposium celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome and brings us up to date on the genetic basis of cancer, addressing the role of tyrosine kinase enzymes, microRNAs, and immune cells.

The inner regions of tumors have a low-oxygen content and often contain inflammatory cells called macrophages, which researchers suspect promote tumor growth. Now, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers show that this is the case: Tumor cells in this low-oxygen area actively recruit macrophages and blocking their recruitment reduces tumor growth and aggressiveness in mouse models. The results suggest new targets for cancer drug development.

Quitting smoking is a hard task for anyone, but tailored cessation therapy may increase an individual’s chance of success, according to Penn researchers. Over the last several years, they have found that individuals who metabolize nicotine relatively slowly benefit from nicotine patch therapy more than people who metabolize it quickly. Now, in a randomized blinded clinical trial, they found that slow metabolizers benefit from extended treatment with the patch, according to findings presented at the American Association of Cancer Research meeting this week.

Over 140 third and fourth graders from the Penn Alexander School, the St. Donato School, and the Sterck/Delaware School for the Deaf will spend a morning on the Penn campus “judging” hands-on science activities developed by students at Penn, including undergraduate Biological Basis of Behavior program majors and graduate students in neuroscience.

Penn Medicine scientists and colleagues have developed a brain implant that essentially melts into place, snugly fitting to the brain’s surface. The technology could pave the way for better devices to monitor and control seizures, and to transmit signals from the brain past damaged parts of the spinal cord. The ultrathin flexible implants, made partly from silk, can record brain activity more faithfully than thicker implants embedded with similar electronics.

It is frequently reported that less than one-third of ovarian cancers overexpress the HER-2 protein, which is the molecular target of trastuzumab (Herceptin). However, with more sensitive detection methods, Penn researchers found that virtually all ovarian cancers express HER-2. The novel findings suggest that therapy targeting HER-2 may have a role in ovarian cancer treatment in the future, and may improve the outcome for women with ovarian cancer the way it has for women with HER-2 expressing breast cancer.

Using a three-dimensional (3-D) tissue culture system that mimics esophageal tissue growth, Anil K. Rustgi, MD, chief of Gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and colleagues have discovered molecular cross talk between the oncogene Met, which is overexpressed in the majority of esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) tumors; the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) oncogene; and the tumor suppressor gene p53. The results highlight a targeted therapy that may hold promise for treating ESCC.