Dr. Leonard Gomella, M.D., F.A.C.S., the Bernard W. Godwin, Jr. Professor of Prostate Cancer, associate director for Clinical Affairs at the Kimmel Cancer Center (KCC) at Jefferson, and Chair of the Department of Urology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, has been appointed as a member of the Urology Times Editorial Council. He will represent the area of urologic cancer on the Editorial Council. “Dr. Gomella is an internationally recognized leader in the urologic cancer field,” said Richard R. Kerr, Urology Times editor-in-chief. “Dr. Gomella will be an excellent addition to our team of experts in urology.”

Dr. Gomella has also been elected the Mid Atlantic Section Representative to the Society for Urology Chairpersons and Program Directors. The mission of SCUCPD is to provide urology program chairpersons and program directors a forum for the discussion, review and implementation of issues critical to the conduct of urologic residency programs and academic practice for the purpose of advancing academic urology to the highest state of innovation resourcefulness and preparation in urologic practice and training of urologists of the future.

For this and more news from the Department of Urology at Thomas Jefferson University please see the 2010 edition of the newsletter

ER positive breast cancer patients whose tumors have active protein Stat5 have increased likelihood of responding to anti-estrogen therapy

PHILADELPHIA—Cancer researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson and an international team of collaborators have discovered a biomarker in breast cancer that may help identify which women will respond to anti-estrogen therapy.

The research appears in the May 16 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Anti-estrogen drugs, most notably tamoxifen, are widely used in patients diagnosed with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.  However, as many as a third of the women given tamoxifen fail to respond.

In this new study, the investigators found that women whose tumors retain the active form of the protein biomarker Stat5 have an increased likelihood of responding to tamoxifen.  In contrast, women treated with tamoxifen whose tumors lacked active Stat5 had up to a 20-fold increased risk of dying from breast cancer after adjustment for effects of standard hormone receptor markers and other pathology data.

“Identification of predictive biomarkers present in breast cancer will lead to improved individualized therapies tailored specifically towards each woman’s cancer,” said Hallgeir Rui, M.D., Ph.D., professor of oncology, Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University, and principal investigator of the study.  “Absence of the active form of Stat5 could help identify a group of patients unlikely to respond to tamoxifen so they may be offered alternative and more aggressive treatments.”
Read more…

Benefactors Mark and Alison Weinzierl pose with Kimmel Cancer Center Director Dr. Richard G. Pestell (R) and Dr. Takami Sato (L), Professor of Medical Oncology and director of the Uveal Melanoma research program at the KCC.  The Weinzierls (from the Dallas, Texas, area) are providing $1 million in support of Dr. Sato’s work.

The Kimmel Cancer Center and the Department of Medical Oncology are happy to announce that Drs. Rita Axelrod, Matthew Carbasi and Neal Flomenberg were names in the “Philly Magazine” top 100 Medical Oncologists listing.

Dr. Pestell seen here at dinner with the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, discussing Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center at the Prime Ministerial visit to the USA on March 9, 2011 in New York City.

The Kimmel Cancer Center held it’s quarterly “All Hands” meeting on March 29, 2011. Dr. Richard Pestell, Director of the Kimmel Cancer Center, delivered his quarterly “State of the Cancer Center” address. Awards were presented in four  categories. The Nursing Award was presented to Carole Muto, RN, MSN, CPAN. The Clinical Award was presented to Andrew Chapman, DO. The Basic Science Award was presented to Marja Nevalainen, MD, PhD. The Administration Award was presented to Mildred Harden.

 

 

New faculty:

Thomas Jefferson University welcomes two new, seasoned clinicians and researchers to its Department of Radiation Oncology: Nicole Simone, M.D., from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Bo Lu, M.D., Ph.D, from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Simone is a board-certified Radiation Oncologist who has treated mostly patients with breast and head and neck cancers, while her research involves radiation’s effect on microRNAs in breast cancer and caloric restriction and radiation therapy—and the ability of both to delay breast cancer tumor growth.

“Dr. Simone is rapidly being recognized as one of the rising stars in the field,” said Adam Dicker, M.D, Ph.D, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology. “Her research cuts across a number of cutting edge fields, including breast and prostate cancer biology, metabolism, microRNAs and computational biology.  The connection between diet and cancer treatment is very relevant for patients.”

Dr. Bo Lu is also a board-certified Radiation Oncologist who comes to Jefferson from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., where he was an Ingram associate professor with tenure in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Cancer Biology of the University’s School of Medicine.  He was also an attending radiation oncologist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, member of the Ingram Cancer Center, and director of the Translational Research Program and Lung Cancer Research Program.

“I am delighted that Dr. Lu has joined our faculty,” said Dr. Dicker. “He is internationally renowned for his work in clinical and translational radiation oncology, and I have received numerous congratulatory calls and emails from Chairs of Departments of Radiation Oncology around the world recognizing his numerous achievements.”

Dr. Lu’s focus is on radiation-induced cell death in lung patients, among other basic science areas. His clinical interests include the integration of novel targeted agents in the treatment of lung cancer, radiosurgery for lung cancer, and reductionof toxicities from thoracic radiation. More recently, Dr. Lu has looked at cancer stem cells for enhancing radiotherapy in a setting of lung cancer.

Appointments:

Congratulations to Maria Werner-Wasik, M.D., professor in the department of radiation oncology, and radiation oncology residency program director, who was elected as the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Vice-Chair for Publications. (www.rtog.org)

Dr. Werner-Wasik is a member of the RTOG Lung Cancer Steering Committee.  She succeeds William Sause, M.D., of Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, who has served as the RTOG publications vice-chair since 1999.

Dr. Werner-Wasik will chair the RTOG Publications Committee which is responsible for the oversight ofpublication quality and timeliness of the results of the group’s trials.

Drs. Timothy Showalter and Robert Den have been selected as recipients of the American Brachytherapy Society sponsored High Dose Rate fellowship program (1 week) for 2011.

Giovanni M. Pitari, M.D., Ph.D., has received an award from the American Institute for Cancer Research to support his research project entitled ‘Therapeutic Synergy between Dietary Calcium and Bacterial Enterotoxins for the Prevention and Treatment of Colon Cancer’. The award provides research funding directed toward discovering innovative therapeutic modalities for cancer prevention and cure. Dr. Pitari is Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Director of the Laboratory of Investigative Medicine at TJU.

Dr. Barry  Marshall, winner of the 2005 Noble Prize for Medicine, accepted an Adjunct Professorship in the Department of Cancer Biology and the Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University in November of 2009. Read more…