Just over two weeks to go. We are finalizing our CCSG Site Visit preparations and are in good shape. Our second External Advisory Committee rehearsal is this Friday. I am so proud of what we have accomplished. I have been walking around saying that we’ve cleared all the hurdles and now just have to run through the tape.
Quick fact: from 2014-2018 we had six total training-type grants at the cancer center. Since 2019: 22 grants, including two new T32 grants. This kind of stuff does not happen by accident. Kudos to Dr. Becca Riggins for her inspired leadership and to our great students and mentors.
I was delighted to learn that the first patient enrolled onto our Phase II clinical trial of BXCL701 plus pembrolizumab in pancreatic cancer just received a pretreatment biopsy. This study, led by Dr. Ben Weinberg, is based on work done in my lab. I cannot tell you how incredibly rewarding it is to witness the birth of an idea that was conceived of and gestated in my laboratory. I am so excited to learn if the treatment can help people.
Effective treatment for this dreadful disease cannot come soon enough. Just three weeks ago, a member of our extended family living in Boston, about my age — I’ll call him “A” — developed abdominal pain, leading to a CT scan demonstrating widely metastatic pancreatic cancer. I arranged for him to be seen by a leading oncologist there, but on the morning of his scheduled appointment, “A” experienced a stroke. The stroke was caused by blood clots on his heart valves — a condition called marantic endocarditis, almost certainly a consequence of hypercoagulability related to his malignancy. Because of this, “A” has not been able to get therapy for his cancer, and likely is headed to hospice. Pancreatic cancer remains a disease that gives cancer a bad name.
Nobody ever deserves a catastrophic end to their lives, but this one hurts. “A” is a good man who we cannot help. A retired rabbi, he has spent the majority of his life in service to others. This is his reward?
Of course, cancer doesn’t know good from bad, or right from wrong. But we do. And what is right and just is that we continue to dedicate our own lives to developing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose, treat and cure cancers of all kinds, in all people. Each of us do it in our own ways. I have the immense privilege of doing it through patient care, translational research and leadership of this great cancer center. No one of us will see this war to its conclusion, but if I can help us make meaningful progress, I will be content. In doing so, I honor the struggles of “A” and so many others, assuring that their lives have not been lost in vain.
Stay safe and be well.
Lou
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