$250 million cancer immunotherapy collaboration

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grandma3X
grandma3X Member Posts: 759
edited April 2016 in Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results

Sean Parker sets up $250 million cancer immunotherapy collaboration

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sean-parker-sets-250-million-cancer-immunotherapy-collaboration-040605184--finance.html

"The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will include over 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers from six key cancer centers.

The institute will focus on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy, which harnesses the body's immune system to fight cancer cells.

The institute has identified three key areas of research - modifying a patient's own immune system T-cells to target a tumor; studying ways to boost patient response to current immunotherapy drugs; and research to identify other novel targets to attack a tumor.Parker said the current system of cancer drug development discouraged the kinds of risk-taking that could lead to a major breakthrough.

The new institute "is paradigm shifting," said Dr. Jedd Wolchok, chief of the melanoma and immunotherapeutics unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

He said it would alleviate the need for scientists to secure grants, which he said took up at least 30 percent of his time, foster collaboration among accomplished scientists and provide access to the newest information processing and data technology."


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  • cp418
    cp418 Member Posts: 7,079
    edited April 2016

    image

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  • Hopeful82014
    Hopeful82014 Member Posts: 3,480
    edited April 2016
    Thanks - this is very encouraging to see.
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  • JohnSmith
    JohnSmith Member Posts: 651
    edited April 2016

    Great news.

    Parker credited his late friend Laura Ziskin, a Hollywood producer known for such films as "Pretty Woman" and founder of Stand Up To Cancer, with raising his awareness of the need to overhaul cancer research. She died of the disease in 2011.

    "Losing Laura transformed me," he said.

    ---
    Laura Ziskin was first diagnosed with ILC in 2004. In 2008, she started "Stand Up To Cancer" (SU2C) with Katie Couric and others.
    One has to wonder if a possible reason for launching SU2C was due to the Lobular research chasm that existed (then and still today) with the poorly understood subtype.

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