Philanthropists Irwin and Joan Jacobs of La Jolla, CA are giving a $6.5 million gift to UCSF for head and neck cancer research. It is believed to be the largest private, U.S. gift for research supporting this disease.

Irwin Jacobs is the founder, retired CEO, and current board member of telecommunications giant Qualcomm. He is also a survivor of a rare form of the cancer.

The gift will establish two distinguished professorships at UCSF for head and neck cancer research, one in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and one in the Department of Radiation Oncology:

• The Irwin Mark Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Distinguished Professorship in Head and Neck Cancer - In honor of David W. Eisele, MD, professor and chair of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, who is the first recipient.

• The Irwin Mark Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Distinguished Professorship in Head and Neck Cancer Radiation Oncology - In honor of Jeanne Quivey, MD, professor of clinical radiation oncology, who is the first recipient.

The gift was announced by UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, at a special celebration ceremony attended by the Jacobses and other special guests.

In 2007, Jacobs discovered, while showering in his La Jolla home, a bump at the back of his jaw near his left ear. Initially, he consulted a dentist, believing it was a dental problem. The bump was later diagnosed as an adenoid cystic carcinoma, a cancer that generally originates in the salivary glands and for Jacobs occurred in his parotid gland.

Within weeks of his diagnosis, Jacobs was under the care of Eisele, who removed the tumor with a parotidectomy, preserving Jacobs’ facial nerve. Quivey oversaw Jacobs’ postoperative radiation therapy.

Jacobs recounted that Quivey “warned me I’d probably lose all my hearing in the left ear, which I haven’t.” He added, “It did take away my sense of taste for a while. There was a time when the only thing that tasted good was vanilla ice cream.”

Head and neck cancers account for about three to five percent of all cancers in the U.S., according to the National Cancer Institute, with a small proportion of those cancers occurring in the salivary glands.

“It’s an unusual tumor,” said Eisele. “We don’t understand very well why these tumors occur. We don’t understand the variability from patient to patient. We’re very interested in the molecular underpinnings and the behaviors of these tumors so we can come up with more effective therapeutic strategies. The Jacobs’ generosity will help us hopefully make some creative discoveries.”

In addition to their department positions, both Eisele and Quivey are affiliated with the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Source:
Elizabeth Fernandez

University of California - San Francisco

Wei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., cancer epidemiologist with Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, Tenn., has received a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research on women and cancer. The MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) awards provide long-term support to investigators with impressive records of scientific achievement in research areas of special importance or promise. Fewer than five percent of NIH-funded investigators are selected to receive MERIT awards, which provide financial support for up to 10 years without competitive review.

“I am very excited to receive this award and the award is recognition of the teamwork involved in our research,” said Zheng, Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center. “Epidemiological studies require a multidisciplinary team and I am privileged to work with so many talented, dedicated people at Vanderbilt and many other institutions.”

The MERIT award will support continuation of the Shanghai Women’s Health Study, a population-based study of 75,000 women who were recruited between 1997 and 2000 with a major focus to identify associations between diet and lifestyle and diseases such as cancer.

Zheng and his team are studying the impact of soy foods, tea, ginseng and cruciferous vegetables on cancer risk and health. In addition to answering detailed surveys, the women provide blood and urine samples for identification of exposure to dietary influences as well as potential disease biomarkers.

“Many studies have looked at diet and lifestyle factors that are bad for individuals but we are trying to find things that are protective against disease,” said Zheng. “These observational studies may allow us to gather enough evidence to launch a large trial that tests the effects of some of these compounds.”

Zheng and his investigative team also are conducting genome-wide association studies, scanning the entire genome for disease susceptibility biomarkers. They are studying telomeres, DNA copy number variations, prostaglandin metabolites and other biomarkers that may be important in cancer and other disease processes.

“Wei Zheng is an outstanding cancer investigator and mentor to many of our young researchers,” said Bill Blot, Ph.D., associate director of Cancer Prevention, Control and Population-Based Research at Vanderbilt-Ingram. “The MERIT award recognizes the importance of this high-impact research on international health.”

Zheng said the award also validates the contributions of the thousands of women in the study who donate their time as well as biological samples to provide answers to important health questions. He hopes this and other related studies will have a major impact on cancer and disease prevention.

“One of our goals is to build a risk assessment model for breast cancer that will allow us to identify those women at high risk for the disease for cost-effective prevention,” Zheng said.

Source
The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:COT), announced positive results today from combination agent animal experiments carried out at a prominent American cancer research facility. The results provide strong supportive evidence for the continued evaluation of COTI-2 in combination with conventional single agent therapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer:

- Tumor growth inhibition was significantly greater in the COTI-2 plus Doxil treated animals compared to the Doxil control group treated animals with:

– 12.5 mg/kg COTI-2 + 2 mg/kg Doxil causing 57% tumor growth inhibition

– 25 mg/kg COTI-2 + 2 mg/kg Doxil causing 54% tumor growth inhibition

– 2mg/kg Doxil control causing 29% tumor growth inhibition

- The effectiveness of the combination treatments with COTI-2 was apparent early in the study (day 4) and increased throughout the remainder of the study.

- Combination treatments were well tolerated.

“We are delighted to see that intravenous COTI-2 in combination with Doxil showed superior treatment results compared to Doxil alone as measured by significant tumor growth inhibition in an animal model of an aggressive human ovarian cancer (A2780). These results are significant because they add to the impressive data set of COTI-2, showing effectiveness, particularly in combination with first and second line agents, against multiple cancers and low toxicity,” said Dr. Wayne Danter, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (COTI).

“COTI will share this new data with parties who have expressed interest in a commercial partnership related to COTI-2,” said Mr. Michael Cloutier, Chief Executive Officer of COTI.

The Company intends to repeat this study using an oral formulation of COTI-2 to compare the effectiveness of oral COTI-2 in an animal model of human disease.

The Company is also advising of a correction to its June 10, 2009 press release, which announced a brokered private placement as this should have read a non-brokered private placement.

Source
Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (COTI)

View drug information on Doxil.