Yale Cancer Center Members Honored at Annual Conclave
I was pleased to be able to share last night with many of you at the second annual Yale Cancer Center Conclave. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the Yale Cancer Center Lifetime Achievement, Clinical, and Research prizes. The senior leadership team selected the recipients of these awards in recognition of their outstanding contribution to cancer care and research.
William H. Prusoff, PhD, Professor Emeritus of  | | Tom Lynch, William Prusoff, and Dan DiMaio |
Pharmacology, was honored with the inaugural Yale Cancer Center Lifetime Achievement Award. A member of the Yale faculty for 57 years, Dr. Prusoff is recognized as the "Father of Antiviral Chemotherapy" for his synthesis of 5-iodo-deoxyuridine, the first clinically useful anti-viral med icine. In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was raging, together with the associated cancers resulting from immunosuppression. With his late colleague Tai-Shun Lin, Dr. Prusoff demonstrated the anti-HIV activity of another nucleoside analogue, d4T. Marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb as a component of the first combination anti-viral therapy for HIV, d4T has been given to millions of people worldwide and helped slow the AIDS epidemic until it was replaced by improved, next generation drugs.
Dennis Cooper, MD, Professor of Medicine, was honored
 | | Tom Lynch, Dennis Cooper, and Peter Marks |
with the 2010 Award for Clinical Excellence. Dennis is an exceptional oncologist and a wonderful model for the standards of patient care that we strive to have in place throughout Smilow Cancer Hospital. I am proud to have Dennis as part of our Hematology Program and congratulate him on his 25 years of practice at Yale Cancer Center.
Frank Slack, PhD received one of the two 2010 Research
 | | David Stern, Frank Slack, and Tom Lynch |
Prizes for his paper OncomiR Addiction in an in vivo Model of microRNA-21-Induced pre-B-Cell Lymphoma in the August 2010 issue of Nature. Frank's work in tumor addiction to oncomiRs has shown support for efforts to treat cancer through drug inactivation of microRNAs. He is a Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Director of the Yale Cancer Center Genetics and Genomics Program.
Benjamin Toll, PhD was the recipient of the second 2010  | | Susan Mayne, Ben Toll, and Tom Lynch |
Research Prize for his paper Randomized Trial: Quitline Specialist Training in Gain-Framed vs Standard-Care Messages for Smoking Cessation in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Ben's research was the first to show that Quitline smoking cessation counselors can be trained to provide a novel counseling format, which can be used to test new strategies for smoking cessation. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and a member of the Yale Cancer Center Prevention and Control Program.
External Scientific Advisory Board Meeting
Yale Cancer Center welcomed members of the External Scientific Advisory Board (ESAB) to campus last week for their annual meeting. The Board listened to presentations from the leadership of the cancer center research programs and shared resources and will provide recommendations following a thorough review of the programs.
ESAB Members in Attendance: Frederick R. Appelbaum, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Colin Begg, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Deborah J. Bowen, PhD, Boston University
Ronald Desrosiers, PhD, Harvard University
Robert
Diasio, MD, Mayo Clinic Glenn Dranoff, MD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Eli Gilboa, PhD, Sylvester Cancer Center Bruce Haffty, MD, Cancer Institute of New Jersey Susan Horwitz, PhD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Mark A. Israel, MD, Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Linda Jacobs, PhD, RN, Abramson Cancer Center
Lynn
Schuchter, MD, Abramson Cancer Center
Thomas A. Sellers, PhD, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute
Jeffrey Settleman, PhD, Genentech, Inc.
Yale Cancer Center Awards Pilot Grants Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2010-2011 Pilot Grants from Yale Cancer Center:
Alfred Bothwell, Principal Investigator, and Joann Sweasy Cancer Therapy with p53 Protein $25,000 Anees Chagpar, Principal Investigator, Susan Higgins, Ruth McCorkle, Tish Knopf, Beth Jones, Tara Sanft, and Peter Peduzzi Lymphedema and Related Outcomes in African American vs. White Women $50,000 Ya Ha, Principal Investigator, and Yung-Chi Cheng Structural and Functional Studies of Human CMP Kinase 2 $50,000 Steven H. Kleinstein, Principal Investigator, and Matthew Strout The Mutation Spectrum of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Links to Somatic Hypermutation $50,000 Anthony J. Koleske, Principal Investigator, and Titus J. Boggon Structure-Directed Investigation of the Arg:cortactin:N-WASp Complex: A Breast Cancer Invasion Control Switch $50,000 Yilun Liu, Principal Investigator
The Etiology of Lymphoma by the RECQ4 Mutation $25,000 Lynne Regan, Principal Investigator, and Lyndsay Harris A New Class of Hsp90 Inhibitors; Effects on Mammosphere Cultures of Metastatic Breast Cancer Cells $25,000 W. Mark Saltzman, Principal Investigator, Joseph Piepmeier, and Anita Huttner A New Approach for Treatment of Brain Tumors: Preparation for Clinical Testing of Convection-Enhanced Delivery (CED) of Polymer Nanoparticles $50,000 Christian Schlieker, Principal Investigator
Identification of Host Cell Factors Involved in Herpesvirus Pathogenesis $50,000 Qin Yan, Principal Investigator, and Marcus Bosenberg Epigenetic Regulation of Melanoma Propagating Cells by Histone Demethylase JARID1B $50,000 Zhong Yun, Principal Investigator
Stromal Microenvironment and Regulation of Clonal Expansion of Breast Cancer Cells $50,000 Yale Cancer Center Awards TARE Awards Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2010-2011 Targeted Area of Research Excellence (TARE) from Yale Cancer Center: Cary Gross, Principal Investigator, Anees Chagpar, Laura Cramer, Xiaomei Ma, Maysa Abu-Khalaf, Kenneth Roberts, Joseph Ross, James Byunghoon Yu, and Heather Taffet GoldUnderstanding Cost and Value in Cancer Care $100,000 Joann Sweasy, Principal Investigator, Joanne Weidhaas, Kenneth Kidd, and David Tuck The DNA Repair Landscape of Breast Cancer $100,000
YNHH and YCC Receive Reaccreditation by ACoS Commission on Cancer The American College of Surgeons (ACoS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) has awarded Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale Cancer Center with a 3-year accreditation, with commendation, after a comprehensive submission and site review earlier this year. I would like to thank Dr. David Fischer, vice chair of the cancer committee, and Ms. Teresita Vega, manager of the Yale Tumor Registry, for leading the team that achieved this important certification. YNHH was one of the first hospitals in the nation to be accredited back in 1932 and has continuously held the recognition.
Accreditation is based on meeting the standards of the CoC in the areas of quality of cancer care, the appropriate staging of cancer, prevention and early detection programs, community outreach programs, the quality of the tumor registry, the demonstrated continued improvements in patient care and in continuing education of attending and house staff, fellows, nursing, and tumor registry staff. With the advantage of centralizing our cancer efforts in Smilow Hospital, we hope to improve cancer care in all areas to help Yale become one of the top 10 cancer facilities in the United States.
Yale Participation in the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium Several faculty members from Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven will be in attendance and presenting their research at the upcoming CTRC - AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Congratulations to the following faculty members for their participation:
Abstract Review Committee: Lyndsay Harris
Educational Session: Advances in neurosurgery in the management of CNS metastases
Elizabeth B. Claus Educational Session: Quantitative methods to assess eligibility for breast cancer therapy
David L. Rimm
Posters and Poster Discussions Quantitative Subtractive Immunofluorescence To Develop a Surrogate for Mena Inv(asive) Isoform Is Associated with Poor Outcome in Breast Cancer
Seema Agarwal and David Rimm
Trastuzumab (H) and Rapamycin (R) for Treatment of HER-2 Overexpressing Metastatic Breast Cancer (BC) with Prior Disease Progression on H Based Therapy: Safety and Pharmacodynamic (PD) Results
Maysa Abu-Khalaf, Gina Chung, Michael DiGiovanna, Daniel Zelterman, Neil Fischbach, David Tuck, and Lyndsay Harris
Hypoxia Is Associated with Somatic Loss of BRCA1 Protein and Pathway Activity in Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Veronique Neumeister, Jia Li, Robert Lindner, Catherine Sullivan, Peter Glazer, David Tuck, David Rimm, and Lyndsay Harris
A Phase 1b Study To Assess the Safety and Tolerability of the PARP Inhibitor Iniparib (BSI-201) in Combination with Irinotecan for the Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC)
Lyndsay Harris
Insulin-Like Growth Factor Receptor I (IGF1R) Inhibitors May Be Synergistic with Chemotherapy in Basal Breast Cancer
Onyinye Offor, Catherine Sullivan, Sofya Rodov, Kimberly Lezon-Geyda, Cynthia Zerillo, Michael DiGiovanna, and Lyndsay Harris
Integrated Genomic Analysis before and after Brief Exposure to Trastuzumab (T): The11q13 and 17q12 Amplicons Are Associated with Response to T+Chemotherapy in Early Stage HER2 Positive Breast Cancer
Lyndsay Harris, Zongzhi Liu, Ao Li, Emmett Sprecher, Sudipa Sarkar, Kimberly Lezon-Geyda, and David Tuck
Causes for False-Negative Estrogen Receptor (ER) Classification in Breast Cancer
Allison Welsh, David Rimm
Progesterone receptor-negative status predicts poorer outcomes in estrogen receptor-positive patients treated with selective estrogen receptor modulators Anees Chagpar Is cancer-specific distress correlated with time to definitive surgery in breast cancer patients? Anees Chagpar Activation of the Insulin-Like Growth Factor Pathway distinguishes African American from European American patients with triple-negative breast cancer by Gene Expression Profiling Robert Lindner, Onyi Offor, Jorge Chaves, Kimberly Lezon-Geyda, Kyle Halligan, Neal Fischbach, Mansi Shah, Vincent Schulz, Lyndsay Harris, and David Tuck
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