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Meet Dr. Francine Foss

January 07, 2022

Meet Dr. Francine Foss

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  • 00:00Hello, I'm doctor Francine Foss.
  • 00:02I'm a professor of medicine in hematology
  • 00:05and oncology here at the Yale Cancer Center.
  • 00:08I specialize in stem cell transplantation
  • 00:10and the treatment of lymphomas.
  • 00:12In particular, I'm the director of the
  • 00:14T Cell lymphoma group here at Yale.
  • 00:17I've been doing T cell
  • 00:18lymphoma for a very long time.
  • 00:21I started back at the National Cancer
  • 00:23Institute where I was running their
  • 00:25program and then I segued into studying
  • 00:28some of the novel biologic therapies.
  • 00:30And how they apply to T cell lymphoma.
  • 00:33We actually have a team of folks
  • 00:36here that work with us in our clinic,
  • 00:39in the lymphoma clinic,
  • 00:40in particular for T cell lymphoma
  • 00:42we have a nurse practitioner.
  • 00:44We have several practice nurses and
  • 00:46we have nurses that are specializing
  • 00:48in the skin care for patients
  • 00:51with cutaneous lymphoma.
  • 00:52We also have social workers,
  • 00:54dieticians and other folks that
  • 00:56collaborate with our patients
  • 00:57and in hope that we actually can
  • 01:00optimize care for the whole patient.
  • 01:02For the whole person,
  • 01:03not just for their disease.
  • 01:05T cell lymphomas are rare lymphomas.
  • 01:07They're about 10% of all lymphomas
  • 01:09in the United States and their
  • 01:12treatment of T cell lymphoma has
  • 01:14really undergone evolution based
  • 01:15on some of the newer research.
  • 01:17Typically we would give
  • 01:19patients chemotherapy,
  • 01:20but what we've learned is that if we
  • 01:22add some of these newer biological
  • 01:24therapies and targeted agents,
  • 01:26patients are actually doing a lot better,
  • 01:29so our treatments now are tailored
  • 01:31toward identifying specific.
  • 01:32Factors in the tumor,
  • 01:34such as expression of different
  • 01:35proteins or pathways that might
  • 01:37direct us to use specific drugs as
  • 01:40opposed to general chemotherapy.
  • 01:41We are doing a lot of research here at
  • 01:44the Yale Cancer Center in T cell lymphoma,
  • 01:47and that's multifaceted,
  • 01:49including a number of different departments.
  • 01:51Here at the medical school,
  • 01:53we're looking at novel ways of imaging
  • 01:55using different types of pet scanning.
  • 01:57For instance,
  • 01:58we're also collaborating with our
  • 02:00colleagues in pharmacology and
  • 02:02in the basic science departments.
  • 02:04To develop new therapies,
  • 02:05one of the things that I'm interested
  • 02:07in are key McKean directed therapies,
  • 02:09and in particular a new car T cell
  • 02:12therapy that we are now developing.