Keep up with the latest headlines

This February 2020 issue of Cancer Discovery features reports of two very important prospective clinical trials from SFPM members in Zurich, Vienna, Stockholm and Helsinki. Both studies demonstrate the feasibility and utility of functional precision medicine tools in the clinical oncology setting. A commentary by Tony Letai accompanies these articles.

IN 2018, SfPM Member Alana Welm found herself in an exciting, yet burdensome, position. The University of Utah breast cancer research lab where she leads joint projects with her husband, Bryan Welm, had created lab-grown versions of real tumors isolated from living cancer patients. Each cancer had been translated into two kinds of biological models: xenografts, made by implanting tissue into mice, and organoids, miniature clumps of tissue grown in plastic dishes.

The Azzam Lab at Florida International University collaborates with clinicians at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital to guide therapeutic decisions for a 7-year old patient with metastatic refractory rhabdomyosarcoma using a personalized functional precision oncology approach. Their guided treatment plan led to longer progression-free survival than the regimen on which the patient had just experienced progression. This report is the first demonstration of the efficacy of functional precision medicine in guiding treatments in children.

Researchers at MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a high-throughput assay that detects subtle changes in the mass of individual drug-treated cancer cells as a surrogate biomarker for patient treatment response. Their findings suggest cell mass is a promising functional biomarker for cancers and drugs that lack genomic biomarkers.

We would like to invite you to a webinar co-hosted by Oncology Convention Expo, Precision Oncology: Beyond Biomarkers on 5th October at 14:00 (BST).

Sanford M. Simon and his group tested over 5,000 compounds, either already approved for other clinical uses or in clinical trials, to see whether any of the compounds could be repurposed to treat fibrolamellar. The team used PDX models to uncover a few classes of therapeutics that eliminate fibrolamellar tumor cells grown in mice.

The 2021 Functional Precision Medicine in Blood Cancer Symposium which took place virtually on March 25-26th, 2021 was very interesting and well attended. If you were not able to make it please take a moment to watch the recording by clicking on the "Learn More" button below.

SEATTLE, April 13, 2021 -- SEngine Precision Medicine, a precision oncology company that pre-tests drugs on patient-derived live tumor specimens employing its CLIA certified PARIS® Test, today presented results from an ovarian cancer study indicating strong predictive value of the PARIS® Test (abstract number 534) at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, taking place virtually from April 10-15, 2021.

We cordially invite you to the 2021 Functional Precision Medicine in Blood Cancer Symposium that will be hosted in the context of a European Functional Precision Medicine Initiative in cooperation with the EHA-SWG Functional Precision Hematology, and the Society for Functional Precision Medicine. The symposium will take place March 25-26th, 2021 – virtual - and will bring together global experts on high-throughput drug screening, precision medicine and blood cancer. You’ll see familiar faces from the SfPM and more!

Please click the button below to register. To preview the schedule, please click here.

Are you a computational biologist or bioinformatician eager to apply your skills and ingenuity to tackle cancer? We open two postdoc researcher positions at NTNU as part of our ERA PerMed project ONCOLOGICS. The two appointed postdocs will work in close collaboration with each other and with a large research team from leading European research organizations.