Category Archives: In the News

Abuzz in the Blog-o-sphere

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A new IOM report, an excellent explainer piece, and some exciting social media discussions about science in this edition of Blog Buzz!

This week the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a new report, Vital Signs: Core Metrics for Health and Health Care Progress.The report propose 15 standardized measures and recommendations for their use in order to clarify the many measurements associate with health care in the US. The IOM hopes to highlight which measurements the committee feels are the most important for various stakeholders in healthcare to watch. The full report, briefs, info graphics, and a video of the announcement are all available through the link above.

A week can feel like a long time in our modern information landscape, but you may remember the recent hubbub over a study using CRISPR to edit human embryos published by Chinese researchers very shortly after early developers of the method called for the science community to hold off on using CRISPR on human embryos. Whether you missed the story, were curious or even alarmed by it, Carl Zimmer, does a great job explaining it all on The Loom with, Editing Human Embryos so this Happened. I cannot recommend this post enough.

PLoS has been teaming up with reddit to produce a series of science themed AMAs (Ask Me Anything); a cool use of social media to allow experts to communicate with the public about science. Check out last week’s discussion with Dr. Andy Beck of Harvard on the future of cancer treatment, here, or have a peek at this week’s discussion of 3D printing your own Open Source labware, here.

Benefits of Molecular Imaging and More MSK in the News

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  • MSK radiologist, Dr. Nancy Lee and Director of MRI, Dr. Oguz Akin, were featured in an April 27 Washington Post article that explained how molecular imaging is a powerful new tool that helps make both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer more targeted.
  • In an April 26 WSJ article, MSK President and CEO Dr. Craig Thompson, explained how despite cancer not yet having been “cured”, recent advances in cancer research and our ever-expanding knowledge of cancer is something to be excited and hopeful about.
  • MSK’s Computational Biology Program Chair, Dr. Chris Sander, was featured in an April 23 article summarizing the keynote address he gave in Boston at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo. Highlighted was the work he does predicting combinations of targeted therapies to avoid the development of a cancer’s resistance to a single drug. Also mentioned was the cBioPortal visualization & analysis tool developed by his team.

Possible New Biomarker, New Pediatric Thyroid Guidelines, Risks for BRAC1/2 and More…

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Here are a few highlights of cancer research news that have recently caught my attention:

  • A recent study published in JAMA looked at the mutation-specific cancer risks for carriers of BRAC1 and BRAC2. Study conducted by researchers at Bassa Center for BRCA, the Abramson Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at U Penn evaluated 19,581 carriers of BRCA1 mutations and 11,900 carriers of BRCA2 mutations. They concluded that cancer risks varied by type and location of these mutations.
  • The New York Daily News recently published a piece authored by Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Cancer Institute, where he talks about the progress in cancer research and what lies ahead.
  • According to a study by the American College of Surgeons, socioeconomic factors affect chances of death post lung resection. Study looked at 215, 645 patients.

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