Pharma Strategy Blog

Visit Blog Website

210 posts · 175,250 views

Science and biology of cancer, immunologic and hematologic diseases.

Sally Church
210 posts

Sort by: Latest Post, Most Popular

View by: Condensed, Full

  • March 11, 2013
  • 01:49 PM
  • 161 views

Bromodomain Inhibitors – an exciting new target in cancer research?

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

One of the interesting things about basic cancer research is that new targets emerge all the time, offering fresh opportunities…

... Read more »

Filippakopoulos, P., Qi, J., Picaud, S., Shen, Y., Smith, W., Fedorov, O., Morse, E., Keates, T., Hickman, T., Felletar, I.... (2010) Selective inhibition of BET bromodomains. Nature, 468(7327), 1067-1073. DOI: 10.1038/nature09504  

Puissant, A., Frumm, S., Alexe, G., Bassil, C., Qi, J., Chanthery, Y., Nekritz, E., Zeid, R., Gustafson, W., Greninger, P.... (2013) Targeting MYCN in Neuroblastoma by BET Bromodomain Inhibition. Cancer Discovery, 3(3), 308-323. DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-12-0418  

Lin, C., Lovén, J., Rahl, P., Paranal, R., Burge, C., Bradner, J., Lee, T., & Young, R. (2012) Transcriptional Amplification in Tumor Cells with Elevated c-Myc. Cell, 151(1), 56-67. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2012.08.026  

Mertz, J., Conery, A., Bryant, B., Sandy, P., Balasubramanian, S., Mele, D., Bergeron, L., & Sims, R. (2011) Targeting MYC dependence in cancer by inhibiting BET bromodomains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(40), 16669-16674. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108190108  

  • March 1, 2013
  • 09:50 AM
  • 65 views

ASH 2012 update on ARRY-520 in multiple myeloma

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

After highlighting the interesting biomarker program associated with AVEO’s tivozanib in renal cell and triple negative breast cancers in the last…

... Read more »

  • November 29, 2012
  • 10:26 AM
  • 175 views

Effectively targeting KRAS in lung cancer with a MEK inhibitor

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Today is the 1000th blog post here on PSB, a milestone I never imagined actually reaching while writing the inaugural…

... Read more »

  • April 23, 2012
  • 12:00 PM
  • 240 views

Highlights of AACR 2012 – Part 3

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Aside from the already published Part 1 and Part 2 blog posts about AACR here on PSB, you can also find some more coverage, including summaries of other topics, on the companion Biotech Strategy Blog, such as the following: SARDs, … Continue reading →

... Read more »

  • March 23, 2012
  • 12:51 PM
  • 329 views

On adaptive mechanisms of crizotinib resistance in ALK-positive lung cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

One of the biggest challenges facing cancer research was aptly summarised by Levi Garraway and Pasi Jänne in this month’s Cancer Discovery journal: “All successful cancer therapies are limited by the development of drug resistance. The increase in the understanding … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Doebele, R., Pilling, A., Aisner, D., Kutateladze, T., Le, A., Weickhardt, A., Kondo, K., Linderman, D., Heasley, L., Franklin, W.... (2012) Mechanisms of Resistance to Crizotinib in Patients with ALK Gene Rearranged Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 18(5), 1472-1482. DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-11-2906  

Katayama, R., Shaw, A., Khan, T., Mino-Kenudson, M., Solomon, B., Halmos, B., Jessop, N., Wain, J., Yeo, A., Benes, C.... (2012) Mechanisms of Acquired Crizotinib Resistance in ALK-Rearranged Lung Cancers. Science Translational Medicine, 4(120), 120-120. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3003316  

  • March 6, 2012
  • 09:10 AM
  • 439 views

The importance of metabolism in cancer research

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Cancer metabolism is fast becoming an area to watch out for in R&D.  Last month I tweeted that I was attending a one day meeting at NY Academy of Sciences on Cancer Metabolism with keynote speakers Drs Lou Cantley and … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Wise DR, DeBerardinis RJ, Mancuso A, Sayed N, Zhang XY, Pfeiffer HK, Nissim I, Daikhin E, Yudkoff M, McMahon SB.... (2008) Myc regulates a transcriptional program that stimulates mitochondrial glutaminolysis and leads to glutamine addiction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(48), 18782-7. PMID: 19033189  

Locasale JW, Grassian AR, Melman T, Lyssiotis CA, Mattaini KR, Bass AJ, Heffron G, Metallo CM, Muranen T, Sharfi H.... (2011) Phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase diverts glycolytic flux and contributes to oncogenesis. Nature genetics, 43(9), 869-74. PMID: 21804546  

Dang L, White DW, Gross S, Bennett BD, Bittinger MA, Driggers EM, Fantin VR, Jang HG, Jin S, Keenan MC.... (2009) Cancer-associated IDH1 mutations produce 2-hydroxyglutarate. Nature, 462(7274), 739-44. PMID: 19935646  

  • March 5, 2012
  • 10:55 AM
  • 262 views

nab-Paclitaxel and its potential role in pancreatic cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Back in 2009 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Molecular Targets meeting, a researcher (Anirban Maitra) from Boston had a most interesting poster about the use of nanotechnology to deliver nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to pancreatic adenocarcinomas in a more … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • February 26, 2012
  • 04:42 AM
  • 222 views

Will combining custirsen and MDV3100 reduce resistance in advanced prostate cancer?

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Greetings from the European Association of Urology (EAU) congress in Paris. Despite the grey drizzle typical of Europe in winter, this is actually quite an interesting meeting with lots of poster presentations. One poster that caught my eye yesterday was … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • February 24, 2012
  • 10:10 AM
  • 338 views

Combined VEGF and MET inhibition in some cancers may be better than either alone

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

A couple of recent controversies in the field of angiogenesis have fascinated scientists and clinicians alike, namely: Does VEGF inhibition lead to more aggressive tumours? What drives metastases and invasion? What is the role of tumour hypoxia in this process? … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • February 15, 2012
  • 05:10 PM
  • 307 views

Raised platelets reduce survival in ovarian cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

During my years in Pharmaland, I often sat in waiting rooms waiting to see the Principal Investigator (PI) for one of the studies we were doing.  I would generally see them at the end of the clinic, preferring to arrive … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Stone, R., Nick, A., McNeish, I., Balkwill, F., Han, H., Bottsford-Miller, J., Rupaimoole, R., Armaiz-Pena, G., Pecot, C., Coward, J.... (2012) Paraneoplastic Thrombocytosis in Ovarian Cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 366(7), 610-618. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1110352  

Coward, J., Kulbe, H., Chakravarty, P., Leader, D., Vassileva, V., Leinster, D., Thompson, R., Schioppa, T., Nemeth, J., Vermeulen, J.... (2011) Interleukin-6 as a Therapeutic Target in Human Ovarian Cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 17(18), 6083-6096. DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-11-0945  

  • February 14, 2012
  • 09:09 AM
  • 263 views

A new fusion gene target in a rare soft tissue sarcoma

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Every now and then my eye is caught by reports of new fusion genes being found in different cancers.  Often these descriptions involve researchers across multiple laboratories due to the rarity of the target.  Following a discussion on Twitter yesterday, … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Tanas, M., Sboner, A., Oliveira, A., Erickson-Johnson, M., Hespelt, J., Hanwright, P., Flanagan, J., Luo, Y., Fenwick, K., Natrajan, R.... (2011) Identification of a Disease-Defining Gene Fusion in Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma. Science Translational Medicine, 3(98), 98-98. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3002409  

  • February 10, 2012
  • 04:24 PM
  • 359 views

The role of the Androgen Receptor in breast cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

This week I have been in Orlando for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference on prostate cancer chaired by Drs Arul Chinnaiyan (U. of Michigan) and Charles Sawyers (MSKCC).  It was a superb meeting, probably one of … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Hu, R., Dawood, S., Holmes, M., Collins, L., Schnitt, S., Cole, K., Marotti, J., Hankinson, S., Colditz, G., & Tamimi, R. (2011) Androgen Receptor Expression and Breast Cancer Survival in Postmenopausal Women. Clinical Cancer Research, 17(7), 1867-1874. DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-10-2021  

  • February 2, 2012
  • 11:39 AM
  • 518 views

Is ARN-509 (Aragon) potentially better than MDV-3100 (Medivation) in advanced prostate cancer?

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Many readers will have noticed that the advanced prostate cancer market is rapidly becoming crowded with three new therapies (cabazitaxel, sipuleucel-T and abiraterone) already approved and several more in late stage development, including Alpharadin (radium-223) and MDV3100, both likely to … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • January 31, 2012
  • 06:09 PM
  • 410 views

Update on Medivation’s MDV3100 in advanced prostate cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

This weekend heralds the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary (GU) meeting in San Francisco, although ASCO held their press briefing today to provide an update on some of the key topics. For those of you interested in … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Chen CD, Welsbie DS, Tran C, Baek SH, Chen R, Vessella R, Rosenfeld MG, & Sawyers CL. (2004) Molecular determinants of resistance to antiandrogen therapy. Nature medicine, 10(1), 33-9. PMID: 14702632  

Carver, B., Chapinski, C., Wongvipat, J., Hieronymus, H., Chen, Y., Chandarlapaty, S., Arora, V., Le, C., Koutcher, J., Scher, H.... (2011) Reciprocal Feedback Regulation of PI3K and Androgen Receptor Signaling in PTEN-Deficient Prostate Cancer. Cancer Cell, 19(5), 575-586. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2011.04.008  

  • January 31, 2012
  • 08:08 AM
  • 356 views

On KRAS, NF-kB activation and pancreatic cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Pancreatic cancer as many readers know, is one of those cancers that is generally diagnosed later than most in stage IV and as a result, has a poor prognosis, often only a year or so from diagnosis. It has been … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • January 26, 2012
  • 03:12 PM
  • 325 views

A new opportunity for vemurafenib in BRAFV600E colon cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

There’s been quite a flurry of commercial news on the Pharma front this morning, with Amgen buying Micromet (whose leading product is blinatumumab in ALL) and Celgene announcing their acquisition of Avila Therapeutics who have a Bruton Kinase Inhibitor (BTK) … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Prahallad, A., Sun, C., Huang, S., Di Nicolantonio, F., Salazar, R., Zecchin, D., Beijersbergen, R., Bardelli, A., & Bernards, R. (2012) Unresponsiveness of colon cancer to BRAF(V600E) inhibition through feedback activation of EGFR. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature10868  

  • January 24, 2012
  • 12:56 PM
  • 624 views

Unravelling early colorectal cancer: the links between ROS, DNA methylation and inflammatory responses

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

During yesterday’s discussion with Dr Ray DuBois (MD Anderson Cancer Center) about inflammation and methylation, the topic of CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) in colorectal cancer (CRC) came up as you can see from the brief audio clip below: Steve … Continue reading →
... Read more »

O'Hagan, H., Wang, W., Sen, S., DeStefano Shields, C., Lee, S., Zhang, Y., Clements, E., Cai, Y., Van Neste, L., Easwaran, H.... (2011) Oxidative Damage Targets Complexes Containing DNA Methyltransferases, SIRT1, and Polycomb Members to Promoter CpG Islands. Cancer Cell, 20(5), 606-619. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2011.09.012  

Federico A, Morgillo F, Tuccillo C, Ciardiello F, & Loguercio C. (2007) Chronic inflammation and oxidative stress in human carcinogenesis. International journal of cancer. Journal international du cancer, 121(11), 2381-6. PMID: 17893868  

  • January 23, 2012
  • 12:29 PM
  • 657 views

New research demonstrates the link between inflammation and early development of colon cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

Recently, epigenetics has been very much to the forefront with promising new human data in lung and breast cancers. This morning I was therefore thrilled to see some exciting work just published in Nature Medicine Online First from Ray DuBois’s … Continue reading →
... Read more »

  • January 16, 2012
  • 11:18 AM
  • 294 views

miRNA as a potential biomarker for early breast cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

One way to potentially improve long term cancer statistics is earlier detection, and in high risk patients, appropriate initiation of earlier treatment, since it is well known that the survival in stage II or III breast cancer is noticeably better … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Schrauder, M., Strick, R., Schulz-Wendtland, R., Strissel, P., Kahmann, L., Loehberg, C., Lux, M., Jud, S., Hartmann, A., Hein, A.... (2012) Circulating Micro-RNAs as Potential Blood-Based Markers for Early Stage Breast Cancer Detection. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029770  

Foss KM, Sima C, Ugolini D, Neri M, Allen KE, & Weiss GJ. (2011) miR-1254 and miR-574-5p: serum-based microRNA biomarkers for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Journal of thoracic oncology : official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, 6(3), 482-8. PMID: 21258252  

Boeri M, Verri C, Conte D, Roz L, Modena P, Facchinetti F, Calabrò E, Croce CM, Pastorino U, & Sozzi G. (2011) MicroRNA signatures in tissues and plasma predict development and prognosis of computed tomography detected lung cancer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(9), 3713-8. PMID: 21300873  

Häusler, S., Keller, A., Chandran, P., Ziegler, K., Zipp, K., Heuer, S., Krockenberger, M., Engel, J., Hönig, A., Scheffler, M.... (2010) Whole blood-derived miRNA profiles as potential new tools for ovarian cancer screening. British Journal of Cancer, 103(5), 693-700. DOI: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6605833  

  • January 5, 2012
  • 04:03 PM
  • 291 views

Gene mutation and resistance to chemotherapy in colorectal cancer

by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog

This week’s New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) contained a fascinating article on how a specific gene mutation known as Transcription factor AP-2 epsilon, TFAP2E–DKK4, appears to be responsible for inducing at least some of the resistance to chemotherapy that … Continue reading →
... Read more »

Ebert, M., Tänzer, M., Balluff, B., Burgermeister, E., Kretzschmar, A., Hughes, D., Tetzner, R., Lofton-Day, C., Rosenberg, R., Reinacher-Schick, A.... (2012) TFAP2E–DKK4 and Chemoresistance in Colorectal Cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 366(1), 44-53. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1009473  

join us!

Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.

If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.

Register Now

Research Blogging is powered by SMG Technology.

To learn more, visit seedmediagroup.com.