Dear Members of the Englander Institute,
June was a very busy and successful month for all of us at the Englander Institute. Our work was a major focus within the launch of WCM’s “We’re Changing Medicine,” campaign, including the critically important work of our colleagues Drs. Monica Guzman and Juan Miguel Mosquera in saving the life of Cheryl Bonder.
We also produced a large amount of news coverage for our work, won impressive awards, spoke at high-profile events, and published impactful research in top-tier publications. I was especially happy to share my thoughts with you about Juneteenth and the Promise of Medical Equity.
In the next edition of this monthly newsletter we will launch a new section called “Ask Olivier.” To participate, EIPM staff should send their questions to Peter Cleary (we will identify questioners by using just the first initial of their first name).
Finally, we have some really interesting new Career Opportunities and I encourage you to share them with your professional colleagues. Please also visit our website and social media channels X (Twitter), Facebook and Instagram for daily updates on our work.
Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our mission.
Sincerely,
Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.
News Coverage & Awards
Congratulations to Dr. Laura Santambrogio on her new $1.2 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health for her study entitled, “Lymphatics-Glymphatics in CNS Fluid Homeostasis.”
The EIPM was mentioned in a new article “What Is Precision Health & Why Are Organizations Suddenly Investing Billions In It?” in Forbes about the new Weill Cornell Medicine development campaign, on June 30th.
Dr. Manish Shah was quoted in the article “Preoperative pembrolizumab may enhance major pathologic response in esophageal cancer,” that appeared in HemOncToday on June 9th. Dr. Shah presented a video, “Dr. Shah Discusses HER-RAM Study Results in HER2+ GI Cancers,” for the Oncology Learning Network on June 15th.
Dr. Peter Martin was interviewed for “Real-World Treatment Reveals Discrepancy Between Actual Care and Clinical Trial Recommendations in MCL,” regarding his poster on mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) presented during European Hematology Association 2021 Virtual Congress, in OncLive on June 12th. Dr. Martin was also interviewed for the articles, “The complex situation for immunocompromised people and COVID-19 vaccines,” in National Geographic on June 16th; and “Discrepancies Between Real-World Patterns of Care and Recommendations Based on Clinical Trials Exist in MCL,” in OncLive on June 23rd; “MCL Treatment: Differences Exist Between Trial-Based Recommendations and Real-World Care,” in Cure Today on one 29th; and “The Gap Between Academic and Community-Based MCL Treatment,” in Targeted Oncology on June 30th.
Dr. Nasser K. Altorki was interviewed for the article “In early lung cancer, immunotherapy plus targeted radiation may up response rate,” by Reuters Health on June 18th. Dr. Altorki was also interviewed for the article “Adding SBRT to neoadjuvant durvalumab shows promise in early NSCLC,” which appeared in Medicine Matters Oncology on June 25th.
Dr. Bishoy Faltas provided Expert Commentary “Proteomic Biomarkers for Urothelial Cancer Based on the Tissue Preservation Methods,” in UroToday on June 17th; “Germline Variants in Renal Cell Carcinoma Patients,” in UroToday on June 17th; “Predicting Response to Immunotherapy in Patients with Metastatic Urothelial Cancer Using Radiomics,” in UroToday on June 21st; and “Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) Are Critical Players in Bladder Cancer Radioresistance,” in UroToday on June 29th. Dr. Faltas was also interviewed for the article, “In Urothelial Cancer, Most Subtypes Benefit From Maintenance Bavencio (Avelumab),” in Managed Healthcare Executive on June 28th.
Dr. Scott Tagawa presented a video “Dr. Tagawa Discusses Study Results of Actinium J591 for mCRPC,” for the Oncology Learning Network on June 22nd.
Events
Thanks to Dr. Gabi Kastenmuller from the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich, Germany for presenting the EIPM Seminar Series lecture “Metabolomics: A Tool for Precision Medicine in Complex Diseases,” on June 10th.
Dr. Monica Guzman presented her research as part of the WCM ACCESS Summer Research Program on June 22nd.
I was honored to present “Predicting mechanisms of action, human toxicity and optimizing indication using biology-driven AI,” at the Front Line Genomics event Innovations in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning for target identification, validation & prioritization,” on June 2-3.
Dr. Scott Tagawa presented findings from the VISION clinical trial evaluating 177Lu-PSMA-617 in men with PSMA-positive metastatic prostate cancer at the ASCO2021 Plenary Session, which was selected as a top-5 abstract for the entire conference. June 6th. Dr. Tagawa also created a video presentation, “Determining Dose-Limiting Toxicity and Maximum Tolerated Dose of 225Ac-J591 in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer,” for ASCO2021.
EIPM Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg presented “Exceptional Responder with Urothelial Cancer and discussion of the UC Landscape,” during our Precision Medicine virtual conference on June 10th.
Dr. Melissa B. Davis presented the webinar, “Breast SPORE Seminar: The Role of African Ancestry in Breast Cancer Disparities,” for the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine on June 17th.
Dr. Shauna L. Houlihan, EIPM’s Associate Director of Liver Research, presented during the New York Genome Center’s Very Rare Cancer Consortium Disease Spotlight & Research Roundtable focused on Hepatoblastoma on June 24th.
Assistant Professor Alex Sigaras presented an XR Healthcare speakers series lecture “XR Healthcare: XR in Medicine in the Era of Precision Medicine,” for the vStanford Healthcare Innovation Lab on June 29th.
Dr. John P. Leonard produced a special ASCO2021 CancerCast podcastfeaturing Dr. Manish Shah on June 22nd discussing important new cancer research across a wide range of disease areas.
Publications
Drs. Francesca Khani, Andrea Sboner, Scott Tagawa, David M. Nanus, Brian Robinson, David S. Rickman, with Michael Sigouros, Rohan Bareja, and myself published “Temporal evolution of cellular heterogeneity during the progression to advanced AR-negative prostate cancer,” in Nature Communications on June 7th.
Dr. Bishoy Faltas presented the poster, “Novel Immunotherapy Approaches Across the Spectrum of Urothelial Cancer Stages,” during ASCO2021, UroToday.
The first of 3 review papers documenting the analytical demands, utility, and interpretation of clinical whole-genome sequencing, “Analytical Demands to use Whole-Genome Sequencing in Precision Oncology, was published by myself and colleagues in Seminars in Cancer Biology on June 10th.
Dr. Lorenzo Galluzzi published “ATP and cancer immunosurveillance,” in The Embo Journal on June 14th. Dr. Galluzzi also published “Immunological barriers to immunotherapy in primary and metastatic breast cancer,” in Embro Molecular Medicine on June 15th.
Dr. Jan Krumsiek, along with Dr. Elisa Benedetti of the WCM Institute of Computational Biomedicine, and colleagues published “The Colorectal Cancer Lipidome: Identification of a Robust Tumor-Specific Lipid Species Signature,” in Gastroenterology on May 15th.
Dr. Pinkal Desai was first-author on a new paper, “Open-Label Phase II Prospective, Randomized, Controlled Study of Romyelocel-L Myeloid Progenitor Cells to Reduce Infection During Induction Chemotherapy for Acute Myeloid Leukemia,” in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, published on June 22nd.
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