I hope everybody is surviving the holidays so far. I am off again, this time to San Diego for the yearly Antibody Engineering meetings sponsored by the Antibody Society. I am looking forward to the excellent science and to giving a talk about work going on in the lab. While it will be nice to enjoy the wonderful San Diego weather, it is even nicer to stay connected to science. It keeps me centered as I grapple with the day to day challenges (most of them are actually very interesting!) of running a Cancer Center.
Yesterday, I attended a very interesting meeting of the CCSG program formerly known as MTDT (no, we are not renaming it Purple Rain), organized by Mike Pishvaian. The objective was to identify new and exciting clinical trial concepts that would rapidly emanate from science being done at Lombardi, with support provided by me. Despite all of Mike’s efforts, the turnout was relatively sparse, though the discussions were vibrant and interesting. Those of us who attended got to have their ideas discussed and used as bases for a whole new generation of exciting clinical trials. Folks who chose not to attend really missed the boat on this opportunity!
Have a great rest of the week.
4 replies on “Looking forward to science”
I missed the meeting organized by Mike and your blog made me even more curious about what were discussed (since the details were missing…). Can someone tell us what targets and strategies were discussed?
Thanks
York
Hello All,
We recently had an MT/DT meeting and it has come to my attention that many of you all did not receive the e-mail. So please accept my apologies for my email blasting dysfunctionality.
In our meeting we wanted to solidify a few ideas for novel clinical trials focusing on targets that are in line with our research interests here. Much to my pleasant surprise, we had a great deal of interest and a solid plan. Each of the attendees is going to put together a two page summary of a trial and present it at the next DDDT (note the new name for MT/DT) meeting in January.
We will be meeting Tuesday, January 13th at 4PM (meeting room TBA).
Our goal is to A) Weigh in on the ideas and B) Enhance the ideas with additional correlative science input from the group – so anyone that wants to jump in and presumably have access to the patient samples should feel free to do so. Then we would try to push the group to have the trials written and submitted to the appropriate agency (Pharma, CTEP, or just straight to our IRB) by ~mid to late February.
The trial ideas focused around:
1) The EGFR interactome
2) EGFR, more broadly
3) VEGF
4) PPARg agonism
5) mTOR inhibition
So, I look forward to a very lively and productive discussion and I would love to have a big turn out in January. See you then.
Mike Pishvaian
Thank you for all the interested comments I have been getting in the halls recently. I think the January 6th meeting will be exciting. [Please note the date and time change – it will now be January 6th at 4pm in the Research Building E501 Conference Room.]
To that end, and at Dr. Shields request, I would like to develop a “Review Committee”. The idea would be that the committee would review the proposals we discuss for their quality, feasibility, how they fit programatically in the Lombardi vision (that sounds much more presumptuous than I mean it), and the rapidity with which they could be implemented. The review committee would then identify proposals that:
1) Needed revision;
2) Looked promising, but needed help perhaps, for example on getting it off the ground; and
3) Looked ready to roll.
Furthermore, the possibility of “buying” one or more trials would be on the table if any of the trials really was ready to send to the IRB.
I would like to invite anyone who might be interested in being on such a committee to let me know ASAP. I am arbitrarily thinking of about 5 people, and I will develop a basic “scoring system” for evaluating these proposals.
Finally, for anyone who is actively writing, could I ask you to send me your trial proposal/summary of 2-3 pages no later than January 2nd so that I can put them together for presentation on the 6th.
Thanks again,
Mike Pishvaian
Thanks for your efforts, Mike. This is a great idea, and could be the start of a regularly scheduled activity that helps us identify, vet and promote our best translational clinical concepts.
Lou