Targeting the Phosphoinositide-3 Kinase (PI3K) Pathway in Breast Cancer

This podcast reviews current data related to the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) pathway, its role in breast cancer, the frequently with which PI3K is aberrant in breast cancer, and the potential clinical implications of using agents that target the PI3K pathway. Jose Baselga is the Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Associate Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston where he is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research interests are in clinical breast cancer and in translational and early clinical research. He conducted the initial clinical trials with the monoclonal antibodies cetuximab and trastuzumab and is leading the clinical development of several new agents including pertuzumab and PI3K inhibitors. His main focus in the laboratory and in the clinic is in the area of novel anti-HER2 agents, in the identification of mechanisms of resistance to anti-HER2 agents and therapeutic approaches to target the PI3K pathway. He is also leading a number of neo-adjuvant trials in breast cancer and has been at the forefront of developing biomarker-based early and translational clinical trials.

Personalized Medicine and Cancer Research

Dr. Sonali Smith discusses personalized medicine and how it is helping shape current and future cancer research. Sonali Smith, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Discussion about robotics in surgery and cancer therapy

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes artist and engineer Ken Goldberg from Berkeley. Goldberg discusses robotics in surgery and cancer therapy, and their application in disasters and on the battlefield. Describing several of his recent art projects, Goldberg then discusses complementarities with his engineering research and reflects on the philosophical implications of 'telepresence.' 

Multilevel Interventions in Health Care Conference

Multilevel Interventions in Health Care: Building the Foundation for Future Research Goals, with his background as an oncologist, researcher and administrator, Dr. Otis Brawley (American Cancer Society) brings his unique perspective on multilevel interventions in clinical practice and consider how health care changes and multilevel interventions. Dr. Brawley currently serves as professor of hematology, oncology, medicine and epidemiology at Emory University. From April of 2001 to November of 2007, he was medical director of the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, and deputy director for cancer control at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. He has also previously served as a member of the Society’s Prostate Cancer Committee, co-chaired the U.S. Surgeon General’s Task Force on Cancer Health Disparities, and filled a variety of capacities at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), most recently serving as assistant director.

The Evolution of the p53 Family of Genes: Somatic Cell & Germ Cell Fidelity

Arnold J. Levine, The Simons Center for Systems Biology, Institute for Advanced Study. Arnold Levine is a widely acclaimed leader in cancer research. In 1979, Levine and others discovered the p53 tumor suppressor protein, a molecule that inhibits tumor development. He established and heads the Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute, which concentrates on research at the interface of molecular biology and the physical sciences: on genetics and genomics, polymorphisms and molecular aspects of evolution, signal transduction pathways and networks, stress responses, and pharmacogenomics in cancer biology.

David Argyle - Hounds and the Cancer Genes:

The final in a series of public lectures which show that keen detective work is still essential for 21st Century doctors.

Recorded on 19 November 2009 in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at the University of Edinburgh.

Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the lectures highlight the University's acclaimed medical research.

The speaker, David Argyle, is William Dick Professor of Veterinary Clinical Studies at the University.

Breast Cancer Medicine: Today and Tomorrow

Medical oncologist Larry Norton of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center explains how new information about the biology of breast cancer is paving the way for a more targeted approach to chemotherapy for breast cancer. Advances in the field of molecular genetics have shown that breast cancer can be caused by several genetic mutations. Researchers are using this information to develop more effective therapies that target these genes.

Molecular Testing in Breast Cancer: Will it Become Standard Practice?

How has gene expression profiling impacted the way we diagnose and treat breast cancers? Kimberly Allison, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology at the University of Washington discusses how research using gene expression signatures have been used to identify specific subtypes of breast cancer and how these are integrated into traditional classification schemes. In addition, we will explore the development of clinically available gene expression array-based tests that are designed to give prognostic and predictive information tailored to individual breast cancer patients and discuss current limitations of these tests

Global Inequalities implications for research, practice and policy

Michael Marmot was born in London, England. He moved to Australia as a young child and graduated in Medicine from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1968. He earned a MPH in 1972 and PhD in 1975 from the University of California, Berkeley. He became Fellow of the (English) Faculty of Public Health Medicine in 1989 and was appointed Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL in 1985. This became a joint Chair, held at UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in 1990. He became Director of the International Centre for Health and Society (now the International Institute for Society and Health) that he established at UCL in 1994. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and awarded an MRC Professorship in 1995. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1996. In 2004 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Epidemiology. He was Chair of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health from 2005 to 2008.

Skin Cancer Prevention and Early Detection

Skin cancers -- including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma -- are on the rise, but using sunscreen liberally and limiting exposure to the sun can help prevent them, says Isaac Brownell of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Regular self-examination of your skin, including a yearly dermatology checkup, is the best way to identify skin lesions that may be cancerous. Diagnostic tools such as dermoscopy and confocal microscopy provide detailed images of skin lesions, which may help detect skin cancers and avoid unnecessary biopsies of non-cancerous lesions.

Molecular Assays for Colorectal Cancer Care

Molecular assays for risk stratification for cancer and for the early detection of cancer are currently being developed and are beginning to be used in clinical care. Likewise, molecular assays are being developed as predictive and prognostic markers for cancer. The state-of-the art of currently available risk stratification assays and molecular screening assays for colorectal cancer will be discussed. Current developments in the generation of predictive and prognostic markers for colorectal cancer will also be discussed. Finally, future directions for molecular assays for colorectal cancer will be reviewed.

Using Dendritic Cells to Create Cancer Vaccines

Edgar Engleman, MD, medical director of the Stanford Blood Center, discusses his research involving the use of a special type of white blood cell as a treatment for cancer. Engleman, who is also a professor of pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have been interested in dendritic cells, or DCs, which can provoke an immune response in the body

Cell Biology: How Do Cells Make Decisions?

The moderator is Marc Kirschner, PhD, John Franklin Enders University Professor of Systems Biology, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard University; the speaker is Richard Losick, PhD, Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University; and panelists are Hana El Samad, assistant professor, Biochemistry & Biophysics, UC Berkeley/UCSF Graduate Group in Bioengineering; and Jonathan Weissman, PhD, professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF.

Research Mechanics: Putting the Brakes on Cancer

In this Howard Hughes Medical Institute program, Bert Vogelstein, professor of oncology and pathology at Johns Hopkins University, explains that although there are numerous kinds of cancer, all stem from alterations that allow cell division to outstrip cell demise. Cancers are caused by an accumulation of mutations that alter the activity of genes involved in controlling cell birth, growth, and death. Some of these errors are inherited, but most occur after birth, triggered by environmental carcinogens or by mistakes during cell division. If cancer is likened to a car speeding out of control, cancer-causing mutations are like broken brakes, a stuck accelerator, or an inept mechanic.

Cancer: How Do We Prevent Metastasis?

In this lecture, titled "Cancer: How Do We Prevent Metastasis?," the moderator is Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, MD, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; the speaker is Joan Massagué, PhD, chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program in the Sloan-Kettering Institute; and panelists are Zena Werb, PhD, professor and vice chair, Department of Anatomy at UCSF, and Marc Shuman, MD, professor of medicine and of urology, and Cancer Research Institute at UCSF.

Getting in and out of Mitosis

Prof. Tim Hunt was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with Leland H. Hartwell and Sir Paul Nurse "for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle." He finished his PhD in 1968. He  discovered that tiny amounts of glutathione inhibited protein synthesis in reticulocytes, and that tiny amounts of RNA killed the synthesis all together. After returning to Cambridge he work with Hunter and Richard Jackson, who had discovered the RNA strand used to start haemoglobin synthesis. After 3–4 years the team discovered at least two other chemicals acting as inhibitors.While doing summer work in 1982 at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, using the sea urchin (Arbacia punctulata) egg as his model organism, he discovered the cyclin molecule. Hunt found that cyclins begin to be synthesised after the eggs are fertilized and increase in levels during interphase, until they drop very quickly in the middle of mitosis in each cell division. He also found that cyclins are present in vertebrate cells where they also regulate the cell cycle. He and others subsequently showed that the cyclins bind and activate a family of protein kinases, now called the cyclin-dependent kinases, one of which had been identified as a crucial cell cycle regulator by Paul Nurse.In 1990, he began work at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, now known as the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in the United Kingdom. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1991 and a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1999. 

Cancer Stem Cells: The Origin of Cancer

Irving Weissman, professor of developmental biology at Stanford University Medical Center, addresses what cancer stem cells are, how they maintain themselves and why they may be resistant to some current treatments. Weissman also talks about the "don't eat me" signal and how it relates to the growth of certain types of cancer cells. Find out how Stanford scientists and clinicians are working to identifying cancer stem cells in many types of tumors and how they have used that information to develop new therapeutic strategies.

Early Diagnosis of Cancer: Imaging at the Molecular Level

Dr. Gambhir is the director of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), professor of Radiology and Bioengineering, and head of the Nuclear Medicine Division at Stanford University. He has over 20 years of experience in molecular imaging in both animal models and patients. He has an active laboratory, that focuses on developing molecular imaging assays in small animal models for translation into clinical applications. 

Telomerase and the Consequences of Telomere Dysfunction

Carolyn Widney "Carol" Greider (born April 15, 1961) is currently a molecular biologist at the Johns Hopkins University. She discovered the enzyme telomerase in 1984, when she was a graduate student of Elizabeth Blackburn at the University of California, Berkeley. Greider pioneered research on the structure of telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes. She was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak of Boston, Massachusetts, for their discovery that telomeres are protected from progressive shortening by the enzyme telomerase