In April 1990, Eric Davis was just two years old and diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a disease that would eventually require a bone marrow transplant for him to stay alive. When none of his family were matches, the family began raising the $100,000 required to find an unrelated donor. Finally in 2004, when his disease was no longer able to be controlled by the drugs the doctors prescribed, a donor was found in Germany. The transplant essentially cured Eric and he was able to thrive, later earning a degree in biology. He also found his way to New York City in 2011, working in a research lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). When a position opened up to manage the Unrelated Donor Program at MSK, he jumped at the chance to be able to help patients like himself.

In honor of Patient Safety Week, here’s a compilation of recent publications by MSK authors focusing on patient safety.

Last Sunday, MSK was featured on CBS Sunday Morning in a segment about immunotherapy clinical trials. Young Ezzy Pineda is 12 years old and was diagnosed with leukemia when she was nine. After multiple failed rounds of chemotherapy, she was enrolled in a CAR-T clinical trial at MSK under Dr. Kevin Curran, a pediatric oncologist. While Ezzy is still one of the promising exceptions, found to be cancer-free six weeks after her CAR-T infusion, it gives doctors and patients with incurable cancers everywhere hope. According to the NCI’s Dr. Rosenberg, considered to be the father of immunotherapy, “If you look at all cancer patients, perhaps 10 percent can be helped by immunotherapy today…but it’s getting better every day.”

Matt Seconi has been pedaling for Team Ginger since 2014, shortly after his then girlfriend Kelly Knab was diagnosed with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. While she was undergoing treatment they sought ways to be involved in the cancer community. It was February 2014 when the pair participated in their first Cycle for Survival event in San Francisco, heading a team in honor of Kelly aptly named Team Ginger since Kelly was a redhead. Two months later they brought Team Ginger to ride in Times Square. Matt and Kelly were engaged in December 2014, only days before Kelly passed away on January 2, 2015. She was 28 years old. Seconi used his grief to pedal even harder, back at it for the 2015 events. Since Kelly’s passing, Seconi has participated in 17 rides across the country and raised $660,000 for cancer research.

A recent study by Dr. Steven Wang, a dermatologist at MSK who works with melanoma patients every day, looked at 20 of the best-selling sunscreen products in the United States marketed as 15 to 100 SPF and broad-spectrum. They tested the products based on critical wave length requirement in the US and the UVA protection factor test in Europe. All but one product met the US standard, however nine products failed the EU standard, including eight with an SPF of 50+. Part of the issue is that there are only 17 active ingredients are approved for use in the US, and significantly fewer long-range UVA filters available. Wang argues that the US needs to add new filters into formulation to improve protection, “We’re always looking for new ways to improve protection by adding inactive ingredients with a better film-forming technology.”

Dr. Sergio Giralt presented at the 2017 BMT Tandem Meetings about new treatments for preventing relapse in blood cancers. One of those treatments is lomab-B, a radiolabeled antibody drug targeted against CD45. The way lomab-B works is by helping to prepare patients for hematopoietic stem cell transplants, by conditioning the body and increasing the antitumor effect of the transplant.

An article in Nature (February 22) by Dr. Sadelain and his team, found that using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing creates more powerful CAR T cells. Sadelain and team showed that CRISPR can deliver the CAR gene to a specific location within the T cell genome, thus the CAR T cells are more powerful and can work longer.

Recent research conducted at UCSF, found that imbalances in mutated KRAS could be one of the reasons why certain individuals are more vulnerable or resistant to specific drugs. Computational Biologist, Dr. Barry Taylor, led the genetic analysis of the various advanced cancers in the study. He developed algorithms and software to analyze the relative amounts of normal and mutant KRAS in tumor cells from biopsy samples.

Laura Dohrmann of Crockett, California participated at the San Francisco Cycle for Survival event last month. Dohrmann was diagnosed with an extremely rare soft-tissue cancer, leimysarcoma (LMS) in 2012. After seeing more than 20 doctors and specialists, she flew to MSK to receive treatment. After having most of her thigh removed, and several rounds of chemo and radiation, today she is learning to walk again and has no evidence of disease. She proudly raised a few thousand dollars this year for Cycle for Survival, and plans to return next year as a team captain. While she was unable to ride this year as her legs weren’t strong enough, she’s eagerly waiting for 2018. “This is life-changing for my journey,” said Dohrmann. “I’ll be riding for those who can’t. I’ll be riding for them because I can.”