A special issue of the Federation of the European Biochemical Society (FEBS) Journal dedicated to CRISPR/Cas9 highlights nine review articles, including several MSK researchers.

• Tschaharganeh, D. F., Lowe, S. W., Garippa, R. J. and Livshits, G. (2016), Using CRISPR/Cas to study gene function and model disease in vivo. FEBS J, 283: 3194–3203. doi:10.1111/febs.13750
• Miles, L. A., Garippa, R. J. and Poirier, J. T. (2016), Design, execution, and analysis of pooled in vitro CRISPR/Cas9 screens. FEBS J, 283: 3170–3180. doi:10.1111/febs.13770

MSK is teaming up with the home of TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress”, Kleinfeld Bridal in midtown Manhattan, to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research. Kleinfeld has agreed to donate 5% of every dress over $3,000 (the average price of a dress at Kleinfeld is $4,500 and up) to breast cancer research at MSK for brides who purchase their dress between now and October 31st. Brides shopping during this time period will also be provided with pink silk robes and shoes to celebrate breast cancer awareness. Continue reading →

A hotly debated topic among clinicians and information professionals is the usefulness of medical websites in providing patient information. Dr. Martin Weiser, MD, the Vice Chair for Education and Faculty Development and the Stuart HQ Quan Chair of Colorectal Surgery at MSK argues that “for patients who feel a loss of autonomy, medical websites help them gain a sense of control at a scary and sometimes helpless time” in his NYT Room for Debate piece. He balances that with the point that many of these websites are not without issues, but at the end of the day it is his job as the clinician to inform and educate the patient about the treatment of their disease.

Dr. Sarat Chandarlapaty, MD, PhD, discusses the role of the PI3K pathway in metastatic breast cancer. A less common mutation than AKT, he states that developing a drug that targets these mutations may help difficult to treat patients.

A new device, the CytoSorb, is a blood filtering system intended to decrease the risk of inflammation, one of the main causes of life-threatening diseases like sepsis. Intensive care therapies currently work as supportive, in order to get to patient back to where they can recover on their own. However, Dr. Neil Halpern, MD, Chief of Critical Care Medicine at MSK points out that ” “what we need are new medicines and technologies that target the root cause of these diseases.”

A wall of 80,000 falling paperclips with a poem written by a young man who lost his battle to cancer designed by Silver Springs, Maryland artist Francie Hester welcomes patients and visitors at the new Josie Robertson Surgery Center. “Wordfall” was created as a memorial to Brendan Ogg from Silver Springs who died of a brain tumor in 2010 at the age of 20. Brendan used poetry as a means to cope with his illness and his poem L’Chaim was featured in “Wordfall”.

The ASCO, the SSO, and the ASTRO have come together and issued a joint guideline on what constitutes a successful surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in terms of having cancer-free margins on the removed tissue. Chief of Breast Service at MSK, Dr. Monica Morrow was the lead author on this meta-analysis of over 20 studies involving almost 8,000 patients. They concluded that a 2mm margin should be adequate for breast conserving surgery and is associated with low rates of ipsilateral tumor recurrence.

A recent JAMA Oncology report showed that mutations in estrogen receptors impacted the progression-free survival of breast cancer patients. Dr. Sarat Chandarlapaty and his colleagues used cDNA assays to identify two mutations: D538G and Y5378. For women with these mutations who were treated with Aromatase inhibitors, their progression-free survival rates were the similar to the women with neither mutation. “While this study hasn’t found a “cure” for breast cancer, it suggests a new means of providing a longer life for women with ER+ tumors — even if metastasis has occurred.”

A new study in the Journal of Hepatology by Dr Ghassan Abou-Alfa found that Codrituzumab was not effective for patients who had already failed treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma. However, higher doses of Codrituzumab or selecting patients with higher CD16 and glypican-3 levels could improve patient outcomes.