Improving Healthcare Access: Using an Ontology Platform to Connect Bronchial-Associated Lymphoid Tissue Patients with COVID-19 to Clinical Trials

View full abstracthttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/leading-edge/1015/thumbnail.jp

Tackling Healthcare Inequities: Development & Implementation of a Virtual Platform to Improve Global Access to Oncology Education

View full abstracthttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/leading-edge/1006/thumbnail.jp

The Beauty of New York

The aim of this artwork was to showcase the architectural, artistic, and natural beauty of New York City. The first photograph, the Empire State Building, is the iconic symbol of New York City. The building’s majestic form and tall stature rises above the city, representing the will of New Yorkers. The American flags waving proudly illustrate the perseverance of the American people to rise above all obstacles and succeed. Times Square, the iconic location that gives New York City the nickname of “the City that never sleeps”, is active 24/7 and highlights the City’s top entertainment attractions. The brightness of the displays illustrates that, despite darkness, New York City will always find light. Fifth Avenue is one of the most famous streets in the City and exhibits the work of the world’s most famous fashion designers and sets the newest trends in fashion. The photograph, Winter Wonderland in Prospect Park, shows two leafless trees standing tall in a barren wintry land. Yet, no matter how bleak the situation may be, these trees are inspired by the eternal warmth of the sun and symbolize the old adage “light at the end of the tunnel” that provides hope that life will soon restart and that these trees, too, will grow new leaves. Winter on the Lake displays the perseverance of natural beauty to resist the oracle of death that is typically associated with winter. These flowers are still breathing and blossoming and refuse to lose their glare despite the cold weather and gusty winds. The Beautiful Bird symbolizes the ever-lasting battle between good and evil, where the black spots represent evil and the white feathers represent good. The bird stands tall in a white winter wonderland and graces the world with its majestic presence to remind humanity that the battle is still far from over. The greater number of white feathers indicates that hope will always exist despite the seeming bleakness of a situation. Autumn Happiness shows the resilient nature of this lone flower and showcases its majestic beauty before nature, in the face of the changing climate that is ready to bring a halt to life. The white building in the background, surrounded by blue skies, symbolizes an impenetrable wall of strength illustrating the power of unity and support for peace and friendship between peoples and nations.Faculty Sponsor: Ms. Karen Kernan, M

Innovations in Thoracic Oncology and the Promise of Liquid Biopsies with Dr. Luis Raez

Thoracic oncology continues to pose a great threat to human health as one of the most common forms of cancer. Liquid biopsies present a transformative approach to treating patients affected by these types of diseases by providing a less invasive genetic overview of the tumor, aiding in both diagnostic and treatment measures. The primary objective of this article is to examine the prospects of liquid biopsies in managing thoracic malignancies and to present barriers to their usage as demonstrated by Dr. Luis Raez. In examining why molecular diagnostics continue to be employed together with more traditional methods, this article presents the next steps in the clinical application of blood-based cancer screening. Future cancer diagnosis and treatment aim to prioritize circulating biomarker analyses based on their potential for the detection and monitoring of thoracic cancers. Liquid biopsies are favored thanks to their reduced invasiveness with respect to traditional treatments. The further study of clinical biomarkers and technological advancements are thus pivotal to enhance the clinical applicability of this method. In conclusion, this blood-based analysis offers a promising route by which the diagnosis, treatments, and outcomes of thoracic cancer can be improved

The Potential of Lifestyle Medicine: Strategies to Optimize Health and Well-Being in Oncology Care with Dr. Amy Comander

The field of lifestyle medicine in cancer care and survivorship is undergoing significant transformation, presenting both challenges and opportunities. This collection of insights and reflections by an esteemed speaker aims to address critical facets of this evolving landscape and the intersection of healthcare, lifestyle, and cancer. With a focus on optimizing the health of cancer survivors, the speaker emphasizes the correlation between general population health and strategies for mitigating cancer risk. Evidence-based resources have a key role in their comprehensive insights into lifestyle changes’ role in cancer prevention and survivorship. Lifestyle interventions also have a promising role in mitigating the late effects in the pediatric context. Therefore, encouraging the early adoption of healthy practices in childhood cancer survivors emerges as a pivotal strategy. Furthermore, challenges in enhancing education and access to lifestyle medicine are addressed. This highlights the importance of patient-centered communication, motivational interviewing, and personalized guidance in facilitating lifestyle changes with patients. Finally, the role of nutritionists in advising breast cancer patients to consider calorie restriction to lower IGF-1 levels is explored. This collection underscores the multifaceted nature of lifestyle medicine in cancer care, highlighting challenges, opportunities, and the transformative power of passion and curiosity in shaping healthcare careers

Tissue-specific Tregs in cancer metastasis: opportunities for precision immunotherapy.

Decades of advancements in immuno-oncology have enabled the development of current immunotherapies, which provide long-term treatment responses in certain metastatic cancer patients. However, cures remain infrequent, and most patients ultimately succumb to treatment-refractory metastatic disease. Recent insights suggest that tumors at certain organ sites exhibit distinctive response patterns to immunotherapy and can even reduce antitumor immunity within anatomically distant tumors, suggesting the activation of tissue-specific immune tolerogenic mechanisms in some cases of therapy resistance. Specialized immune cells known as regulatory T cells (Tregs) are present within all tissues in the body and coordinate the suppression of excessive immune activation to curb autoimmunity and maintain immune homeostasis. Despite the high volume of research on Tregs, the findings have failed to reconcile tissue-specific Treg functions in organs, such as tolerance, tissue repair, and regeneration, with their suppression of local and systemic tumor immunity in the context of immunotherapy resistance. To improve the understanding of how the tissue-specific functions of Tregs impact cancer immunotherapy, we review the specialized role of Tregs in clinically common and challenging organ sites of cancer metastasis, highlight research that describes Treg impacts on tissue-specific and systemic immune regulation in the context of immunotherapy, and summarize ongoing work reporting clinically feasible strategies that combine the specific targeting of Tregs with systemic cancer immunotherapy. Improved knowledge of Tregs in the framework of their tissue-specific biology and clinical sites of organ metastasis will enable more precise targeting of immunotherapy and have profound implications for treating patients with metastatic cancer

New-generation taxoid SB-T-1214 inhibits stem cell-related gene expression in 3D cancer spheroids induced by purified colon tumor-initiating cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Growing evidence suggests that the majority of tumors are organized hierarchically, comprising a population of tumor-initiating, or cancer stem cells (CSCs) responsible for tumor development, maintenance and resistance to drugs. Previously we have shown that the CD133^high/CD44^highfraction of colon cancer cells is different from their bulk counterparts at the functional, morphological and genomic levels. In contrast to the majority of colon cancer cells expressing moderate levels of CD133, CD44 and CD166, cells with a high combined expression of CD133 and CD44 possessed several characteristic stem cell features, including profound self-renewal capacity <it>in vivo </it>and <it>in vitro</it>, and the ability to give rise to different cell phenotypes. The present study was undertaken for two aims: a) to determine stem cell-related genomic characteristics of floating 3D multicellular spheroids induced by CD133^high/CD44^highcolon cancer cells; and b) to evaluate CSC-specific alterations induced by new-generation taxoid SB-T-1214.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Selected CSC phenotype was isolated from three independent invasive colon cancer cell lines, HCT116, HT29 and DLD-1. A stem cell-specific PCR array assay (<it>SA</it>Biosciences) revealed that colonospheres induced by purified CD133^high/CD44^highexpressing cells display profound up-regulation of stem cell-related genes in comparison with their bulk counterparts. The FACS analysis has shown that the 3D colonospheres contained some minority cell populations with high levels of expression of Oct4, Sox2, Nanog and c-Myc, which are essential for stem cell pluripotency and self-renewal. Single administration of the SB-T-1214 at concentration 100 nM-1 μM for 48 hr not only induced growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death in these three types of colon cancer spheroids in 3D culture, but also mediated massive inhibition of the stem cell-related genes and significant down-regulation of the pluripotency gene expression. PCR array and FACS data were confirmed with western blotting. Importantly, viable cells that survived this treatment regimen were no longer able to induce secondary floating spheroids and exhibited significant morphological abnormalities.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We report here that a new-generation taxoid SB-T-1214 possesses significant activity against colon cancer spheroids induced by and enriched with drug resistant tumorigenic CD133^high/CD44^highcells and efficiently inhibited expression of the majority of stem cell-related genes. Our data indicates that the previously observed long-term efficacy of SB-T-1214 against drug resistant colon tumors <it>in vivo </it>may be explained by the down-regulation of multiple stem cell-related genes in the tumorigenic cell population, in addition to its known efficacy as a mitotic poison against proliferating cancer cells.</p

Social Media and Professional Development for Oncology Professionals.

The use of social media continues to increase in health care and academia. Health care practice, particularly the oncologic field, is constantly changing because of new knowledge, evidence-based research, clinical trials, and government policies. Therefore, oncology trainees and professionals continue to strive to stay up-to-date with practice guidelines, research, and skills. Although social media as an educational and professional development tool is no longer completely new to medicine and has been embraced, it is still under-researched in terms of various outcomes. Social media plays several key roles in professional development and academic advancement. We reviewed the literature to evaluate how social media can be used for professional development and academic promotion of oncology professionals

Social media and professional development for oncology professionals

The use of social media continues to increase in health care and academia. Health care practice, particularly the oncologic field, is constantly changing because of new knowledge, evidence-based research, clinical trials, and government policies. Therefore, oncology trainees and professionals continue to strive to stay up-to-date with practice guidelines, research, and skills. Although social media as an educational and professional development tool is no longer completely new to medicine and has been embraced, it is still under-researched in terms of various outcomes. Social media plays several key roles in professional development and academic advancement. We reviewed the literature to evaluate how social media can be used for professional development and academic promotion of oncology professionals