Welcome to Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center

 

New GHSU Cancer Center Director talks about goals

In the midst of his second day on the job, the new director of the Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center was talking years down the road, and internationally, about the effort to bring a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center designation.

It is something Dr. Samir N. Khleif knows a little bit about, having just come from the institute and having created the King Hussein Cancer Center and King Hussein Institute for Biotechnology and Cancer in Jordan. Khleif is bolstered by Gov. Nathan Deal, who put $5 million in his budget request for next fiscal year to help the center toward that goal.

“This gesture by the governor sends a message of the seriousness of this,” Khleif said. “And it sends a message of his interest, which is, from our perspective, extremely supportive. It gives us a tremendous amount of push.” [more]

Folate receptors may serve as a front door to ovarian cancer treatment

A new strategy that takes advantage of ovarian cancer’s reliance on folate appears to give relapse patients extra months of life with few side effects, researchers say.

The therapy uses the folate receptors on cancer cells as a sort of front door by pairing a substance attracted to the receptors with a chemotherapeutic agent too toxic to be given systemically, said Dr. Sharad Ghamande, Chief of the Section of Gynecology Oncology at Georgia Health Sciences University.

Large numbers of folate receptors typically indicate the most aggressive ovarian cancers, as well as a variety of other cancers such as breast, lung and kidney [more]

 

Newest cancer therapies multi-task to eliminate tumors

Some of the newest therapies in the war on cancer remove the brakes cancer puts on the immune system, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers report. 

These immunotherapies, such as CTLA4, strengthen the immune system’s attack on cancer by keeping apart two proteins that prevent key immune cells called T cells from activating.

Research featured on the cover of the Journal of Immunology suggests that these therapies also keep tumors from benefitting from IDO, an enzyme used by fetuses and tumors alike to suppress the immune response.[more]

Dr. Samir N. Khleif is named Cancer Center Director

I am very pleased to report the successful conclusion of our nation-wide search for a Cancer Center Director with the appointment of Dr. Samir N. Khleif. Dr. Khleif is currently Chief of the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Vaccine Section, medical oncology consultant with the National Naval Medical Center, and Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He will join us full time beginning January 31.

Dr. Khleif, whose research group designed some of the first cancer vaccine clinical trials targeting specific genetic changes in cancer cells, studies ways to enlist the immune system's cooperation with cancer treatment, both by bolstering its ability to attack cancer cells and inhibiting its faulty interference with cancer treatment.

During his tenure at the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Khleif served as the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the King Hussein Cancer Center and then of the King Hussein Institute for Biotechnology and Cancer, appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services through an agreement between the United States Government and the Kingdom of Jordan. He has also served as a Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner, leading oncology efforts to make drug discovery and development more efficient, innovative and cost-effective.

Dr. Khleif earned his medical degree from the University of Jordan. He completed a residency in internal medicine from the Medical College of Ohio and a fellowship in medical oncology from the National Cancer Institute. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, certified in both internal medicine and medical oncology. Dr. Khleif is a recipient of the National Institutes of Health Award for Merit, the NCI Directors' Gold Star Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jordan Medical Association/General Union of Physicians.

We are steadily gaining recognition within the state and across the nation for optimal standards in patient care and research leading directly to improved treatment, and Samir Khleif is the ideal person to advance our mission.
Please join me in welcoming him to our team.

Ricardo Azziz, MD, MPH, MBA
President, Georgia Health Sciences University, and
CEO, Georgia Health Sciences Health System

Better treatment sought for acute lung injury

Patients can essentially drown in their own fluids when trauma and infection prompt blood vessels to leak, flooding millions of air sacs in their lungs.

Once you get an acute lung injury, you will either survive or die based on who you are,” Dr. Stephen Black, a cell and molecular physiologist at Georgia Health Sciences University.

He is Program Director on an $11.3 million National Institutes of Health grant enabling a research team at GHSU’s Vascular Biology Center to try to improve patient odds by identifying key, destructive events over the first hours and days of injury and developing a cocktail of therapies to block them.[more]

 

Transcription factor is potential target for liver cancer treatment 

Altering the body’s metabolism could be an effective treatment for deadly liver cancer, researchers report.

The finding that inhibiting heat shock transcription factor 1, or HSF1, prevents liver cancer in mice also is another wake-up call that a low-fat, healthy diet is an effective cancer deterrent, said Dr. Demetrius Moskophidis, Cancer Virologist/Immunologist at Georgia Health Sciences University. HSF1 and its target genes are important to metabolism regulation. [more]

New sequencing technology helps indentify genetic causes of cancer

Technology that enables an individual’s entire genome to be sequenced in under two weeks is enabling rapid identification of genetic mutations that cause diseases such as cancer. 

Genetic mutations become targets for new treatments that can zero in on a malady with greater effectiveness and fewer side effects than conventional therapies, said Dr. Lesleyann Hawthorn, geneticist and Director of Shared Resources for the Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center.

But those mutations can vary, even in the same disease. “Two patients may have a breast cancer that pathologically looks the same but actually (involves) different genes,” Hawthorn said. That means the same treatment won’t work for both patients. [more]

 

 

"Cancer is at war in Georgia,"   Dr. Azziz said.

Cancer funding needed, Azziz tells legislators

excerpt from the March 9, 2011 Morris News Service
by Walter Jones

ATLANTA -- Dr. Ricardo Azziz, president of Georgia Health Sciences University, told the House Science & Technology Committee this morning that funding is critical to the research needed to win Georgia’s fight with cancer.

Committee members took turns quizzing him about why Georgia’s cancer rates are so much higher than the rest of the nation. Georgians’ diet rich in fat and starch, lack of exercise and smoking all are to blame he said. [more]

 

 

Jackie Ricciardi/Augusta Chronicle Staff

Thanks to new equipment, Dr. Lesleyann Hawthorn's team can sequence a person's entire genome in 10 days for about $10,000.

New gene techniques promising

excerpt from the March 8, 2011 Augusta Chronicle
by Tom Corwin

What once took teams of scientists a decade and billions of dollars to create, Dr. Lesleyann Hawthorn and colleagues can do in 10 days for around $10,000.

Being able to sequence the human genome so quickly and cheaply, thanks to new equipment at Georgia Health Sciences University Cancer Center, allows them to take aim at nasty forms of breast cancer and brain tumors that often have poor outcomes.

The HiSeq 2000 sequencing system is the only one running in a core laboratory in Georgia and is part of a push among geneticists to get to the point where a person's entire genetic makeup could be sequenced for about $1,000, a key to moving toward personalized medicine, said Hawthorn, the director of shared resources for the cancer center.

That would be particularly important in cancer, especially in cancers that don't respond well to therapy, she said.  [more]

 

 

Go here for the latest list of All Cancer Clinical Research Unit Trials.

 

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