Wow! we're at the end of 2012 and it has been a while (way too long) since I've posted a note so I thought what would be more appropriate than to share a brief year-recap of the exciting things going on at City of Hope as written in a letter (below) by Dr. Stephen Forman, Chair of the Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.
Really, the best hands & minds dedicated to (us) in helping fight cancers and to whom I have an extreme gratitute for giving me the opportunity to cotinue my life and to being a part of my family and friends lives also.
Doing well.
Thank you.
Frank (Uriel)
Dec. 22, 2012
Here is Dr. Forman's letter: [ AWSOME STUFF ! ! ]
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December 14, 2012
Dear [Friends]:
As we approach this holiday season, all of us here at the
City of Hope reflect on the many things in our lives for which we are grateful. On behalf of all of our physicians, nurses
and scientists, I wanted to extend our gratitude to you for your faith in our
efforts to provide you with the best possible care and at the same time conduct
the research required to improve the therapies for everyone who comes to us for
care. All of us who work in this program
remain committed to developing more effective treatments to help not only you,
but those who are yet to come to us for help.
In reflecting on this year, I am very proud of what we have
accomplished, not only in the care of so many people, but in developing new
therapies for the treatment of lymphoma, acute and chronic leukemia,
myelodysplasia and multiple myeloma. Some of the research and clinical
highlights of the past year and for the future include:
Cancer Immunotherapy: We have developed a new way of engineering
the immune system to better recognize cancer, introducing a gene into T cells
that can recognize the cancer. We now have an open T cell therapy trial for
patients with B cell lymphoma undergoing autologous transplant, the first of
its kind in the United States, and will be opening another trial in 2013 that
will allow us to treat patients with various type of B cell lymphoma and
CLL. In our laboratory we are also
working on a similar T cell approach for patients who have AML. Dr.
Ryo Nakamura and Dr.
Andrew Raubitschek are also developing a unique way of stimulating immune
responses against the tumor in patients with B cell lymphoma and patients are
now undergoing treatment with this new molecule called an immunocytokine.
Leukemia Biology: Under the direction of Dr.
Ravi Bhatia, we are conducting laboratory studies to better understand the
leukemia stem cell in both AML and CML and he and his colleagues are developing
trial to more effectively eliminate the stem cell that is the source of the
disease. At the same time, he an Dr.
Smita Bhatia are continuing studies to determine why patients develop
myelodysplasia after being exposed to chemotherapy and have identified genes
that seem to predict its development.
Novel Treatment
Regimens: Dr.
Leslie Popplewell and Dr.
Robert Chen are leading our efforts to develop new early phase clinical
trials for our patients. This past year,
we published a paper about a new drug that is effective for many patients with
Hodgkin disease and T cell lymphoma. This
has facilitated our patients who have had a recurrence of their disease being
able to undergo successful transplant.
This was the first new drug approved by the FDA specifically for these
two diseases.
Dr.
Amrita Krishnan and her colleagues in our multiple myeloma program have
developed a number of innovative clinical trials for both the initial treatment
of the disease as well as for patients who have had a recurrence, including a
new immunotherapy trial that will open in 2013 led by Dr.
Myo Htut.
New Transplant
Regimens: Under the leadership of
Drs. Auayporn
Nademanee, Amrita Krishnan and Andrew Raubitschek, we have also developed
new transplant protocols to improve the efficacy of the therapy for patients
undergoing autologous transplant for lymphoma and Hodgkin disease, utilizing radioimmunotherapy
which targets the radiation to the sites of the tumor. Dr. Samer Khaled has led the development of a
novel reduced intensity transplant regimen for leukemia that has had very good
results to date. Drs. Anthony
Stein, Jeff Wong, George
Somlo and Joseph
Rosenthal have designed a new technique of helical tomotherapy for
treatment of patients with myeloma and those undergoing allogeneic transplant
for advanced leukemia. Our program is
the only one in California using these approaches to improve the outcomes for
patients needing transplant.
Treatment of HIV: In our gene therapy program, Dr.
John Zaia and his colleagues have developed a gene therapy approach to make
stem cells resistant to HIV and we will begin testing this therapy in patients
with HIV lymphoma and ultimately in people suffering from HIV without lymphoma.
CMV (cytomegalovirus)
Vaccine: Dr.
Don Diamond has begun testing the first CMV vaccine in patients undergoing
transplant to eliminate this complication that occurs commonly after donor type
transplants. This is work that was
developed in laboratories at City of Hope.
All of the studies described above will benefit not only
City of Hope patients, but hopefully patients at many other institutions around
the world.
Over the years, I have been very mindful and grateful for
the support we have received from our patients, their families and friends, as
often our initial ideas are facilitated by those who have seen our work and our
progress and want to help. At this time
of the year, if
you would like to help our research programs and maintain the style of
patient care that we all know is critical to recovery, I would invite you to
contact Tina
Pakfar who is one of my colleagues in the Development Office who works with
us in getting support for our research. You can contact her at (213) 241-7216
or at tpakfar@coh.org .
I have been taking care of people with cancer for over 35
years and, like all of you, have memories of wonderful people for whom we have
had the honor to care. Obviously, some
of the research that we do is really in their memory and supporting research is
the only way that we will make progress for all the patients in our own
program.
So, at this wonderful season, full of hope and memory, I
wish you and your whole family a wonderful holiday season and a new year to
come.
Sincerely,
SFJ:jem
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