Personalized medicine is the ability to select a biologic target and direct therapy against this target.  It is associated with improved outcomes in a number of tumor types. The most startling was the development of Gleevec which targets CKit in gastrointestinal stromal tumors. The field has since grown by leaps and bounds. We are making progress in mesothelioma, too.

An example of what I’m talking about is displayed in the presentation made by one of our grant recipients, Liang-Chuan (Steve) Wang, Ph.D., at our International Symposium on Malignant Mesothelioma.

In his presentation of his Foundation-funded grant, Dr. Wang and his colleagues at UPenn identified a gene that may be responsible for chemotherapy resistance in mesothelioma patients to Pemetrexed (Alimta) and cisplatin. As per Dr. Wang, this may identify a group of patients who may need higher doses or longer duration of therapy or perhaps should be encouraged to try new drugs. This is step one and Dr. Wang has assured us that he will continue to work on the concept and in the future hopes that it will lead to a clinical trial.

Another example is the work currently underway to exploit mesothelin as a target and way into the malignant cell. Many of you have met patients at our symposium who have benefited from some of these trials and I remain excited and committed to stewarding patients through the clinical trials system to ensure that they know of all opportunities to participate in cutting edge research. Please take a moment to visit the research section on our website to see how the Meso Foundation has funded grants that have laid the groundwork upon which much of what you read about in mesothelioma news has been built upon.

To further advance our ability to get to the point of personalized medicine the Foundation will continue to foster communication among clinician, basic scientists, pathologists and members of biotech and pharmaceutical companies to disseminate information, as well as fund the work that will take us to the next level. Early on, we partnered with Dr. Mike Becich to ensure that the Mesothelioma Virtual Tissue Bank became a reality and we are proud to say that our efforts have paid off. Mesothelioma researchers now have access to mesothelioma tissue to conduct their experiments and further their scientific endeavors.