Recently in Seminars Category

A very exciting Symposium on Cellular Energy, Metabolism and Cancer was recently held at M. D. Anderson. The focus of the meeting was the role of alterations in metabolism in cancer, a topic that has been debated since first proposed by Dr. Otto Warburg ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg ) in the early 20th century.

With the tremendous advances in genomics, proteomics and delineation of regulatory pathways, cancer biologists are taking a second close look at metabolism and finding that the switch to non-oxidative glycolysis is a hallmark of cancer.

A high point of the meeting was a keynote lecture by Dr. Craig Thompson from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, who gave a broad overview of the field and set the stage for ensuing discussions. Another keynote at the end of the meeting by Dr. Ron Evans of the Salk Institute described some elegant work on how agents targeting nuclear receptors can be used to mimic exercise in mice -- fitness in a bottle.

The Bertner Award Prize was received by Dr. Lew Cantley of Harvard Medical School, whose work on PI3 kinase signaling has been a major force in the cancer field for years, and in the context of cellular energy is showing new, important directions. Three poster prizes also were presented.

The program was very multidisciplinary, including population sciences and therapeutic development. It was planned by the meeting's three co-chairs: Drs. Michele Forman, Cheryl Walker and Dihua Yu of M. D. Anderson.

A new facet of the symposium is that we recorded 18 of the 24 presentations, which are being posted on M. D. Anderson's iTunes University site.

 So, if you didn't get a chance to attend, you can catch the great science on your computer or MP3 player.

Give it a look or listen and let us know what you think.

About 140 nurses from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center -- more than 30 who presented research and clinical projects -- attended the 34th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Congress in San Antonio April 30 - May 3. The meeting attracted more than 6,000 oncology nurses from across the nation and across clinical sub specialties.

 Here are some ONS highlights as experienced by a couple of M. D. Anderson nurses:

 
Thursday, April 30

For three M. D. Anderson nurses, this morning's opening session was an enthusiastic and inspiring reminder of why they became oncology nurses.

 Anita Broxson, MSN, RN and program director of the Beth Sanders Moore Young Breast Cancer Survivors Program; Faith Strunk, MSN, RN, a family nurse practitioner in Breast Medical Oncology; and Linh Thai, RN, a clinical inpatient nurse on P9 agreed that the enthusiasm of the attendees and program re-ignited a personal energy that they each will take back to their patients and co-workers.

 While a mariachi group set the stage for the lively culture of San Antonio, it was keynote speaker Geralyn Lucas, the sassy author of the book, "Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy," who touched the hearts of the attendees. Her humorous and touching stories about her nurses left many in the ballroom dabbing their eyes, nodding and laughing in agreement and remembering fond patients.

"Geralyn so beautifully articulated what it means to be an oncology nurse, and the fact that it was a patient who had the insight made it even more incredible," said Broxson, a veteran M. D. Anderson nurse who is now pursuing her Ph.D.  Broxson presented research in the afternoon poster session.

Strunk, a colleague of Broxson's said, "It's so great to have someone outside our profession speaking so upbeat, so beautifully about what we do.  We know our patients and their families appreciate what we do, but until you've encountered an oncology nurse, people don't know the level of commitment and true expertise."


For Thai, this was the first ONS meeting she had attended in nine years.  When she attended her last meeting, also in San Antonio, she had just graduated from nursing school and joined M. D. Anderson.  This year's meeting brought a new perspective and she more fully appreciates the value of not just the sessions but meeting fellow professionals.  "I appreciate the networking with other nurses," said Thai who also attended a morning educational session on new research in renal cell carcinoma.

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Friday, May 1
 
Before a crowd of about 200 nurses, Joyce Dains, DrPH, JD, RN, FNP-BC, director for Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) Programs and a member of the Survivorship Steering Committee at M. D. Anderson, outlined M. D. Anderson's model for addressing the needs of a growing population of breast cancer survivors.

Dains was one of three panelists who presented on the topic and stressed the tremendous role that APNs have in the transitional care. M. D. Anderson has opened disease-specific survivorship clinics to serve survivors of thyroid, genitourinary and gynecologic cancers; a clinic dedicated to breast cancer survivorship care is opening soon. The clinics are staffed by an interdisciplinary health care team including Advanced Practice Nurses. Fran Zandstra, MBA, BSN, RN, OCN, director of M. D. Anderson's Survivorship Program, attended the session and took questions from attendees who lingered after the session.

 The issue of survivorship is great interest to Tiffany Richards, ANP, AOCNP, RN, an advanced practice nurse in the Lymphoma and Myeloma Clinic.  Also an active volunteer with the International Myeloma Foundation, Richards said she too believes that survivorship programs must be disease specific.  She reports that in myeloma, 30 to 40 percent of patients are living with the disease 10 years and beyond and that their needs are much different than those of a breast or prostate cancer survivor.

Richards also presented at a myeloma education session today that attracted about 500 people, a great response to a session dedicated to a relatively rare cancer. She said that meetings like ONS are a great way to not only network with care providers who share specialties but to share information with nurses who work beyond the large academic centers.  Plus, it's also a chance to talk about future research collaborations.

"ONS is great for bringing together a diversity of nurses, those who work in the large academic centers and those who are the community oncology setting or rural areas," said Richards.  "Those who work in settings beyond the large academic centers often are dealing with patients who are underinsured and uninsured and who have many other burdens at home in addition to their cancer. Their experience with patients with myeloma, and any cancer, is going to be much different from what we experience here."

Richards, who has worked at M. D. Anderson since 2004, received that 2009 ONS Excellence in Patient / Public Education Award.

 

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Saturday, May 2

Mary Hughes, a clinical nurse specialist in the Department of Psychiatry, today delivered the ONS Foundation Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lecture entitled, "Sexuality and Cancer: The Final Frontier for Nurses."

A frequent lecturer on sexuality and quality of life issues of cancer patients, Hughes works with patients at M. D. Anderson as well as the Harris County Hospital District's Lyndon Baines Johnson Hospital where M. D. Anderson supervises the oncology program.

Advanced Practice Nurse Tiffany Richards was part of the large audience assembled in the massive hall to hear Hughes' lecture on a subject that few health care providers or patients discuss, especially in the cancer setting.

Richards said that Mary's message to nurses was this:  "Don't be afraid to ask or talk about sexuality or intimacy issues."

Richards, who has an extensive clinical background not only in oncology but sexual abuse and domestic violence, said sexuality issues cut across disease sites, gender and age but what's vital is communication.  "It can be intimidating to ask a patient about sexuality issues but it can be meaningful to patients that you are opening the door to them talking about their concerns," said Richards.

 Richards also attended other sessions given by Sergio Giralt, M.D. and Maria Guerrero regarding nursing management issues associated with hematologic malignancies and T-cell lymphoma.

 
The Oncology Nursing Society Congress ended on Sunday, May 3.
 

The American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009 officially started this morning. Even so, senior M. D. Anderson researchers were heavily involved Saturday in the customary meeting eve educational sessions.

Saturday's sessions were divided into four general areas - educational programs, methods workshops, basic science-clinical interface sessions and professional advancement.

Methods Workshops

Xifeng Wu of Epidemiology presented "Use of biomarkers in case-control studies of etiology and prognosis: Functional Assays" in a workshop on development of biomarkers for epidemiological studies.

Chun Li of Experimental Diagnostic Imaging discussed "Multifunctional, multimodality cancer imaging based on biodegradable water-soluble synthetic polymers" at a session on nanotechnology platforms for cancer imaging.

J. Jack Lee of Biostatistics co-chaired two sessions on clinical trials design, one on early phase I trials and discovery and one on late phase trials and validation. In the first session, he presented "Adaptive designs for speeding up drug discovery."

Chris Amos of Epidemiology discussed "Copy number variation and cancer risk" at a workshop on new tools for molecular epidemiology.

Professional Advancement Sessions

Elizabeth Travis, associate vice president of women faculty programs, participated on a panel titled "Principles of negotiations: Building dynamic and reciprocal partnerships in your world," the Fourth Women in Cancer Research Leadership Development Workshop.

James Abbruzzese, chair of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, and Mien-Chie Hung, chair of Molecular and Cellular Oncology served as mentors in the 12th Annual Grant Writing Workshop.

Basic Science-Clinical Interface Sessions

Gordon Mills, chair of Systems Biology presented "mTOR pathway components as therapeutic targets: Preclinical and recent clinical experience," in a session on targeting mTOR to inhibit cancer cell growth and cell cycle.

Dihua Yu of Breast Medical Oncology chaired a session on HER-2 targeting therapies, resistance and counteracting strategies.

Educational Sessions

George Calin of Experimental Therapeutics co-chaired a session on cross-talk between epigenetic modifications and non-coding RNAs in cancer. He also discussed "Non-coding RNA paradigms in medical practice."

Jean-Pierre Issa of Leukemia discussed "In vivo epigenetic modulation after DNA hypomethylation therapy" during a session on epigenetic therapies to overcome resistance.