The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) says that declining budgets at the National Institutes of Health a crisis standing in the way of bringing cancer research to patient’s lives.

For the past ten years, NIH budgets have been essentially flat.  Factoring in rising research costs, flat funding means a loss of nearly $6 billion dollars in purchasing power.

AACR is calling on its members and the advocacy community to work even harder with Congress to invest in medical research.  The AACR board of directors said,

Therefore, the AACR announced this morning that it plans to redouble its efforts to engage with Congress to make research funding a higher national priority, raise public awareness of the importance of continued investment in cancer research, and call on its 34,000 members and broader advocacy community constituencies to join together to help better explain and illustrate the value of cancer research and biomedical science to the economic health and well-being of this nation.

AACR President Judy E. Garber, MD, MPH said,

We already see the effects on our most precious resource, young investigators. This is potentially disastrous, as we are relying on them to ensure the continuing pipeline of new discoveries that will have ever greater impact on the welfare of patients and the public health.

AACR is holding its 2012 annual meeting in Chicago this week – Accelerating Science: Concept to Clinic.

Watch Nancy Roach tell AACR members and advocates how they can join the effort for cancer research funding.

Speaking at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, Nancy said,

If public funding for biomedical research matters to you, get involved.

Nancy represented the voice of advocates in an AACR discussion of The Outlook for Cancer Research Funding in the Coming Years: The Importance of Advocacy and Government Relations.

She was joined by former Illinois Congressman John Edward Porter, Shannon K. Bell from the NCI Office of Advocacy Relations, and Jon G. Retzlaff who is the managing director of Science Policy and Government Affairs for AACR.

You can also hear John Edward Porter and Shannon Bell on the AACR website.

Jon Chung PhD

The 2011 Fight Colorectal Cancer-AACR Fellowship, in memory of Lisa Dubow, has been awarded to Jon H. Chung, PhD  from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

His proposed research is Hedgehog Pathway Targeted Therapeutics for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

With the award, Dr. Chung will study alternatives to the traditional Hedgehog signaling pathway in colon cancer cells.  He will explore crosstalk within the cell between the Hedgehog and Wnt pathways and screen for drugs that block both pathways at the same time, potentially stopping cancer development.

He will also be looking at how Hedgehog interacts with DNA damage pathways, research that could lead to treatment that would destroy metastatic cancer cells.

He says,

The Hedgehog signaling pathway has recently emerged as another key player in colorectal carcinogenesis and this pathway is progressively activated during metastasis.  The switch to Hedgehog pathway activation that occurs as tumors metastasize presents an opportunity for developing therapies for metastatic colorectal cancer.  My project will focus on targeting the Hedgehog pathway.

Hedgehog is a gene that is critical to the development of the human embryo.  Signals controlled by the gene direct cells to differentiate or express themselves as different parts of the body with different functions.  However, when Hedgehog expression isn’t normal, its changes can lead to cancer, particularly cancer that  spreads to distant sites (metastasizes).

Recently, drugs to treat colorectal cancer that directly inhibit the Hedgehog pathway have been disappointing.  Dr. Chung is taking a new and different look at Hedgehog signals, particularly when they interact with other important colorectal cancer pathways.

Dr. Chung is  is a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Radiation Oncology & Molecular Radiation Sciences.

He attended the University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MSci degrees in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) in 2002.  In 2006, he completed his PhD at the University of Manchester.  After finishing  his PhD, he started postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Fred Bunz at Johns Hopkins where he has been investigating DNA damage checkpoint and p53 responses in colorectal cancer cells.

Dr. Chung has published research in:

• PLoS Genetics, Cdk2 Is Required for p53-Independent G2/M Checkpoint Control,February 6, 2010, e1000863.
• Cell Cycle: Checkpoint bypass and cell viability, Volume 9, Issue 11, February 26, 2010.

Lisa Dubow lived nine years after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer.  She credits clinical trials and cutting-edge research for her long survival. The Lisa Fund, which she helped establish, supports researchers who are dedicated to developing treatments for patients with late stage colorectal cancer.

You can help support innovative research like Jon Chung’s with a gift to the Lisa Fund.

Too many people avoid colonoscopy.  Too invasive, they say.  Too scary, too risky.

There may be an answer for them in an improved stool test that looks for DNA that is changed in both colorectal cancer and some precancerous polyps.

Of course, if the stool test identifies possible polyps or cancer, a colonoscopy is critical to evaluate the findings and remove polyps.

The test that looks for methylated DNA in human feces, found 85 percent of cancers and 64 percent of large adenomas.  There were few false positives.  Only one in ten follow-up colonoscopies didn’t confirm cancer or adenomas.

Reported at the AACR Colorectal Cancer: Biology to Therapy conference in Philadelphia in October, the screening test was validated in 1,100 patients.

DNA methylation is a chemical change that plays a crucial role in the development of almost all cancers, including colon and rectal cancer.   Methylation can change the way cells grow out of control and develop into cancer. Cells with the altered DNA are shed constantly from the colon wall and from polyps into stool and passed during bowel movements.

Sensitivity

The test was most sensitive for early cancers, which are potentially curable, finding 87 percent of stages I through III.  Strangely, it only found 69 percent of stage IV colorectal cancers,a loss DNA methylation which the scientists can’t explain.

As adenomas grow, the test become more sensitive.  It only finds 31 percent of polyps under 1 centimeter, but 64 percent of those over a centimeter, 79 percent of polyps bigger than 2 cm, and 91 percent of adenomas larger than 3 cm.

Sensile or flat polyps were also detected.

It was equally effective in finding both polyps and cancers in the upper and lower parts of the colon — a problem for colonoscopy, which may miss polyps in the upper or proximal colon.  Age or gender didn’t make a difference.

Patient-friendly

Dr. David Ahlquist pointed out the value of the stool DNA screening test.

There is definitely an incentive and legitimate justification to be designing a screening approach that is user friendly, affordable and has the ability to detect pre-cancers. The noninvasive stool DNA test we have developed is simple for patients, involves no diet or medication restriction, no unpleasant bowel preparation, and no lost work time, as it can be done from home. Positive tests results would be followed up with colonoscopy.

How About Now?

The new test, being developed by Exact Sciences, is simpler than earlier stool DNA testing both for patient and for the testing system.  The faster, simpler test may be less expensive when it is on the market.

But, for now, the test remains experimental.  A large clinical trial, involving at least 8,000 people will begin early next year, which may lead to FDA approval for screening use in the United States.

During the discussion at AACR conference, Ahlquist was asked what doctors should do if patients read about the new screening test and ask for it.  He replied that it is not yet ready for the general public and that patients should be encouraged to have a colonoscopy now.

Learn More

A video from Exact Sciences provides additional information about how the stool DNA test works.

Patients, care partners, survivors, advocates . . . everyone.  It’s Our Time!

Watch a video about the promise of cancer research — and its urgency — from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Dr. Chou discussing his poster at AACR

Both Dr. Jeffrey Chou and Dr. Yaguang Xi presented research posters at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in Washington this week.

Dr. Chou is the 2009 Lisa Dubow Research Fellow, and Dr. Xi received the award in 2008.

Dr. Xi’s research found a micro-RNA (miRNA) that made colorectal cancer cells more sensitive to 5-FU and also predicted which cells, and potentially which patients, response best to treatment with 5-FU.

Dr. Chou studied whether treating colorectal cancer cells with decitabine (DAC) could produce cancer-testis antigen in the cells and make them sensitive to immunotherapy.

Both scientists are doing work with colorectal cancer cell lines, but their research has good possibilities to be developed into treatments for people with colorectal cancer.

Knowing which patients respond best to 5-FU and then increasing its effectiveness, as Dr. Xi is exploring, could target therapy in both early and advanced colon and rectal cancer and improve their outcomes.

The cancer-testis antigen is an attractive target for immunotherapy because it doesn’t occur in normal body cells, other than in the testes.  While it does arise in some cancers, its expression is limited in colorectal cancer cells.  By sensitizing colorectal cancer cells with decitabine, an immune therapy treatment that targeted the cancer-testis antigen might be able to destroy those cells.  Dr. Chou’s work might lead to better treatments for patients with advanced colorectal cancer harnessing the body’s immune system.

Both researchers received support from the Lisa Fund whose goal is to provide grants to promote research into treatments for late-stage colorectal cancer.  Gifts to the Lisa Fund help promote this critical work.

C3 Board Chair Nancy Roach and C3 staffer Kate Murphy and were part of the Scientist-Survivor Program at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting in Washington this week.

Nancy was a mentor for a group of patient advocates who were attending AACR .  For Kate this was a third AACR Annual Meeting.  She presented a poster about C3 and its work.

This year’s meeting theme Conquering Cancer Through Discovery Research led to more than 700 presentations and 6,500 posters presenting key basic and translational research.

Five days of intense listening, thinking, and discussion started early and ended late, but both Kate and Nancy left the meeting with new energy and greatly increased hope that cancer science in the laboratory can be successfully translated into real prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer.

Among some ideas that they heard during the meeting:

• Science has given us a much better understanding of the many diseases that are called cancer.
• Genes, pathways in the cell, and networks of pathways are being identified where cancer can be targeted and defeated.
• Colorectal cancer is at least three different diseases with wide variations in how it appears in each individual patient.
• Critical points to attack cancer are preventing it, finding it early, and keeping it from spreading beyond the original tumor.
• Clinical trials can be — and are being — designed that can produce answers to what treatment is effective for which patients much faster.

Besides an opportunity to be part of the meeting  the Scientist-Survivor Program provides additional presentations and discussions with leading cancer researchers for its participants along with many opportunities to talk with other cancer research advocates and share their work.

Discussing what we have learned from sequencing over 185,000 genes in 100 cancers during a Plenary session for entire AACR meeting, Dr. Bert Vogelstein, who directs the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at Johns Hopkins pointed out:

• We “kind of understand cancer” right now.
• There are probably no more “big” cancer genes to discover.
• The challenge is to use the knowledge we have right now to help patients.

He said,

The cure of cancer is within our grasp.  We just need creative ways to develop new therapies or early detection.

As Dr. Donald S. Coffey from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine told the Scientist-Survivor group in a talk What is Cancer,

Think and ask questions.

That is exactly what C3′s research advocates are doing.

Rona Yaeger MD

Rona Yaeger, MD is the 2010 Lisa Dubow Research Fellow, receiving the 2010 American Association for Cancer Research – Colorectal Cancer Coalition Fellows Grant.

The Award will be made tonight at a special dinner in honor of AACR Fellows Fund grantees.

Dr. Yaeger is from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.  Her grant research will focus on inhibiting the AKT pathway in colorectal cancer cells.

She will be doing basic research to determine how inhibitors to the pathway might affect cells of patients who have mutated KRAS and are resistant to EGFR inhibiting drugs. Dr. Yaeger will also be conducting a phase II clinical trial with an AKT inhibitor for patients with metastatic colorectal who have normal KRAS.

The C3 “Lisa Fund” was created in memory of Lisa Dubow, a founder of C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition who was 42 years old when she was diagnosed with stage III colorectal cancer. Ms. Dubow credited cutting-edge research and clinical trials with helping her survive her colorectal cancer for nine years before her death in 2007.

The Lisa Fund supports researchers who are dedicated to developing treatments for patients with late stage colorectal cancer. Through the Lisa Fund, C3 has partnered with the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) as part of its Fellows Grants Program to attract and reward cutting-edge researchers.

In accepting the award, Dr. Yaeger said,

I am very excited to receive this grant in support of my research and grateful for the opportunity to become an independent researcher. This research supports idea targeted therapies in colon cancer and it is my hope that we can rapidly translate the understanding of pathways important in cell growth for the treatment of colon cancer and to better the lives of colon cancer patients.

Dr. Yaeger joins Dr. Yaguang Xi and Dr. Jeffrey Chou as Lisa Fund Research Fellows.

C3 will represent people touched by colorectal cancer with the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) initiative by serving on the SU2C Advocacy Advisory Council. “Our role as advocates is to help shape the direction of the exciting research that will be funded by SU2C,” said Nancy Roach, C3 Board of Directors.

SU2C is a national effort to raise substantial monies for ground-breaking translational cancer research that will accelerate advances in patient care as well as in cancer prevention.   A program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, SU2C was established by a group of media, entertainment, and philanthropic leaders whose lives have all been affected by cancer in significant ways. They have partnered with American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) to provide expert scientific oversight of this important initiative.

The centerpiece of this initiative will be a nationally televised fundraising event to air on September 5, 2008.  The networks have joined together in an unprecedented collaboration to donate one hour of simultaneous, commercial-free prime time for this program.

SU2C will bring together the major television networks, entertainment industry executives, celebrities and prominent leaders of the cancer research and advocacy communities to work in a way that will transcend the barriers that have traditionally inhibited creativity and collaboration. Its distinctive approach to research is designed to enable collaboration across institutions and groups by funding research projects conducted by interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, translational and clinical research “dream teams” as well as high-risk, high-impact Innovative Research Grants.

The AACR will lead the scientific review of the research projects, oversee the management of team science projects, and administer the funds raised under the direction of an expert Scientific Advisory Committee chaired by Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D.   A description of the SU2C funding model can be found here.

In addition to C3, approximately 25 other key advocacy organizations are part of the SU2C Advocate Advisory Council, which will serve as a critical resource for the project. Examples of C3’s participation include suggesting ways to enhance this national initiative and electing two members annually to serve on the Scientific Advisory Committee which will determine the funding direction and approve the research proposals. A broad description of Council members’ roles and responsibilities can be found here.