FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:March 2, 2001
CONTACT: Laurie Slothower(916) 734-9023Pager: (916) 762-9855[email protected]
UC DAVIS GETS $6.5 MILLION TO OFFER NEW CANCER DRUGSFive-year award funds effort to develop life-extending cancer therapies.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- The UC Davis Cancer Center has received a $6.5 million award from the National Cancer Institute to offer novel, innovative and new therapies for people with cancer.
The five-year award will support investigations of anti-cancer agents in early phase II clinical trials. All new cancer drugs are tested under a series of carefully controlled studies known as clinical trials. Phase II trials test the safety and effectiveness of treatments, many of which have already been proven to benefit people with cancer but which may not have been approved by the FDA.
Clinical trials make promising therapies available to cancer patients long before they are available to other cancer programs, community hospitals and the public at large.Studies will be performed under the auspices of the California Cancer Consortium, a collaborative, NCI-funded group consisting of the UC Davis Cancer Center, City of Hope National Medical Center and the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Since the California Cancer Consortium's inception six years ago, more than 1,000 patients have participated in research studies sponsored by the group. Many have benefited from these groundbreaking studies by extending their survival and improving their quality of life while battling cancer.
Harriet Liebman, 77, learned she had advanced (stage IV) non-small cell lung cancer last year. Told her cancer was inoperable and that she had six months to live, the Sacramento resident visited specialists at hospitals in Southern California before enrolling in one of the UC Davis Cancer Center's consortium studies.
"I knew about clinical trials because my niece was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. After her doctors said they had done all they could, she went to City of Hope Medical Center and got a new treatment using stem cell rescue," said Liebman. "She's alive today because of it."
Liebman is receiving carboplatin and paclitaxol (Taxol) along with a new drug, tirapazamine. Her initial CT scans show her cancer is responding to the drug. "I did this for selfish reasons -- I want to live! I still have a lot to do," said Liebman. "But there's the unselfish reasons, too. If it's too late for me, maybe someone else can benefit from what I'm going through."
Joe Martin, 73, learned he had advanced prostate cancer in 1994. Surgery and treatment kept the disease at bay for four years, but his PSA levels started to skyrocket. PSA, or prostate specific antigen, is a protein secreted by the prostate gland. In men who have been treated for prostate cancer, an elevated PSA almost always signifies recurrence. Indeed it had, and his doctor told him it had spread to his hip and ribcage.
When he came to the UC Davis Cancer Center in 1998, he opted to participate in a phase II clinical trial. His disease stabilized when he received flavopiridol, an anti-cancer agent that modulates cell growth and development. Later, his cancer progressed, and he enrolled in another research study, a combination of docetaxel plus estramustine. Within weeks, his PSA dropped to undetectable levels.
A second-generation farmer, Martin was able to prune 40 acres of almond trees without the bone pain he had experienced before undergoing investigational therapy.
"The stuff really helped, although not to the point that they can say I'm cured," said Martin, a resident of Arbuckle. "They say I'm in remission. At the rate I was going, though, I don't know if I would be here now, or in what condition."
David Gandara, a professor of medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center and associate director of clinical research for the UC Davis Cancer Center, is principal investigator of the program.
"This award allows us to offer more effective and less toxic therapies for cancer, including targeted biological treatments that modify cancer genes," said Gandara. UC Davis's award is the largest of the eight contracts awarded by the NCI's Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) this year and is the only one given to an institution on the West Coast. The evaluation program oversees clinical research programs nationwide in an effort to expedite investigational therapies considered interesting, promising and novel.
Because the award requires that researchers demonstrate the biological effectiveness of new drugs, more than 50 clinicians, pathologists, molecular biologists and pharmacologists will participate in designing and conducting cancer studies. Paul Gumerlock, an associate professor of hematology/oncology in the UC Davis School of Medicine, is director of molecular biology for the program. Zelana Goldberg, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center, is director of radiation oncology. David Shelton an associate professor of radiology at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center, is director of diagnostic radiology.
Besides UC Davis, organizations receiving these NCI awards include the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, Montefiore Medical Center, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania and Princess Margaret Hospital.
The UC Davis Cancer Center is a regional program serving a population of five million people throughout central California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon. The cancer center logs 3,000 new cancer patients and 21,000 visits annually. More than 100 investigators are associated with its clinical research program. Areas of emphasis include cancer biology, animal models of human cancers, drug development, cancer control and prevention, lung and prostate cancer.
As part of UC Davis, cancer researchers are able to draw upon the institution's many strengths, including the School of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and specialized centers in genetics, genomics, comparative medicine and primate studies. Last year the UC Davis Cancer Center agreed to develop an integrative cancer program with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, further integrating strong programs in cancer research with the science laboratory's expertise in biomedical technologies, physics and chemistry.
For more information or to participate in cancer clinical trials, call (916) 734-8053 or visit the cancer center's clinical trials web site at http://cancer.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/clinical_trials/index.html
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Copies of all news releases from UC Davis Health System are available on the web at http://news.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
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