Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Does pregnancy reduce the risk of developing breast or gynecologic cancers? Harold Burstein, MD, PhD, breast oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, helps shed light on historical and modern studies that reveal an inverse relationship between the number of pregnancies and the likelihood of developing breast cancer. Have a question about cancer risk and prevention? Comment below or email us at https://lnkd.in/eYbEzPtG. We'll try to address your question in a future episode. Like and share to spread the word about cancer prevention. #cancerprevention #cancerscreening #breastcancer #oncology #fyp

Five Dana-Farber nurses – the most in Institute history – were among those recently recognized by the New England Regional Black Nurses Association (NERBNA) at its 36th annual Excellence in Nursing Awards. Millicent Burke, BSN, RN; Rhondine King, MSN, NP-C; and Samantha Normilus, BSN, RN, were honored for Excellence in Nursing Practice. Holly Lopes, MSN, RN, was lauded for Excellence in Nursing Leadership. And Kayoll Gyan, PhD, RN, was recognized for Excellence in Nursing Research. A strong Dana-Farber contingent cheered them on at the ceremony, which was held at the Royal Sonesta Boston. Incorporated in Boston in 1972, the NERBNA is committed to unifying, educating, and increasing the number of Black nurses in the United States. Focused on investigating, defining, and determining the health care needs of Black people throughout New England, and working to eliminate disparities in care, the association offers educational programs, counseling, and leadership development to its members. “We are so proud of our honorees. These awards highlight their commitment to providing excellent patient care, leading and mentoring nurse colleagues, and conducting original research,” says Anne Gross, PhD, RN, senior vice president for Patient Care Services and chief nursing officer. “They fully embody our mission, vision and values.” Chosen for their expertise, as well as exemplary skills within their specialty areas, nurses honored by the NERBNA are nominated by colleagues from their home institutions and then selected by a committee of senior members of the association. Burke, a nurse in the Imaging Department at Dana-Farber - Chestnut Hill, was praised by Nurse Manager Jennifer Zappulla, MSN, RN, for her role in contributing to the successful establishment and operation of the then-new facility in December 2020. King, who has worked as a nurse practitioner with the surgical group and medical oncology team within Head and Neck Oncology, was lauded for her “excellence, competence, compassion, and diligence” by Head and Neck Research Nurse Michelle Flynn, RN, OCN. Watching Lopes grow in her career to her current role as a nurse manager for oncology nurse navigators, nominator Elizabeth Wigozki MSN, RN, has been impressed by her capacity to lead work groups and develop symptom management algorithms while continuing to go the extra mile for patients. Normilus’ transition from an inpatient oncology nurse to a clinical research nurse speaks to her skills as “a consummate team player and a tremendous communicator,” according to nominator Caryn Caparrotta, MSN, RN. Gyan, associate director of the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services, drew praise from nominators for improving the lives of Black women with cervical cancer in numerous ways: her nationally acclaimed research on cervical cancer health disparities; her strengths as a nurse leader; her mentoring; and her work with Boston-area community groups.

Congratulations to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Margaret Shipp, MD, who has been inducted into the Giants of Cancer Care Program. Shipp is among the 15 inductees selected to join the prestigious 2024 class.   Shipp’s research focuses on the biology of normal and malignant B cells and aggressive B-cell lymphomas. Shipp is the Chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia at Dana-Farber, the Director of the Lymphoma and Myeloma Program of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.   The Giants of Cancer Care program aims to honor and celebrate the accomplishments of leading researchers and educators whose discoveries have propelled the field and set the groundwork for future advancements. A selection committee of more than 115 esteemed oncologists choose honorees from a range of tumor types and specialized categories. The inductees have been selected by their peers for their remarkable achievements in oncology research and clinical practice.   

Dana-Farber researchers and faculty made an impressive showing at this year's American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) Meeting – as leaders, award recipients, scientific presenters, panelists, and panel moderators. The meeting, held earlier this year in San Antonio, drew researchers, clinicians, and health care professionals from around the world to share research findings and insights from their own experience in stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy. The ASTCT is a professional association created to improve the application and success of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and related cellular therapies. Its 3,900 members work as researchers, clinical practitioners, and educators in more than 50 countries. Highlights of this year's meeting include: Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, director of Dana-Farber's Adult Stem Cell Transplant Program, was named the 2024-25 president of ASTCT. Prior to joining the ASTCT Board of Directors, he served the Society as chair of the Task Force on Generic Drugs in Stem Cell Transplantation and chair of the Committee on Young Clinicians and Investigators. Nicoletta Cieri, MD, PhD, was awarded an Amy Strelzer Manasevit Research Program grant from the National Marrow Donor Program. The award, one of the largest and most coveted grants in the transplant and cellular therapy field, is given to early-career researchers investigating preventions or treatments to life-threatening complications following cellular therapy. Robert J. Soiffer, MD, chief of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies, delivered the Mortimer M. Bortin Lecture, named for the founding scientific director of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. Catherine Wu, MD, chief of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies, chaired a session on the topic of Antigen Discovery, during which she delivered a plenary presentation on a recent study she led with Cieri and Gad Getz, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Amy Emmert, MScPH, executive director of External Affairs, Cellular Therapies, moderated a panel discussion titled "The Space Between Value and Delivery in Cell Therapies – Sustainability, Evaluation, and Allocation." Mahasweta Gooptu, MD, gave a talk on factors to consider in stem cell transplants involving donors and recipients who are not a close immunological match. Traditionally, when a donor's HLA markers are not a close match to the patient's, survival rates have been significantly lower. Because HLA matches are more common among members of the same ethnic group, and because some ethnicities are not well represented in donor registries, it can be difficult to find potential donors for patients from those groups. However, recent advances such as the use of the drug cyclophosphamide to prevent GVHD have resulted in similar outcomes between fully matched and slightly mismatched donors.

We are pleased to share that Joel Katz, MD, MACP, will join Dana-Farber as Senior Vice President for Education, a new position devoted to the comprehensive training of medical students, residents, and clinical fellows at Dana-Farber. He will be a member of the Executive Leadership Team and joins us July 1.  Dr. Katz most recently served as Vice Chair for Education at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program and held the Cynthia and John F. Fish Distinguished Chair in Medical Education. He is a graduate of Earlham College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He began his career in education at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as Chief Resident. He then served as a residency Program Director at Allegheny General Hospital, before returning to Brigham and Women’s as Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency. He led the training of thousands of residents, transformed the teaching curriculum, founded several residency tracks and pathways, and developed strong faculty leadership.  He has long been a devoted educator and advocate for trainees and is committed to helping early career physicians grow and find success. As Senior Vice President for Education, Dr. Katz will work with existing fellowship directors and serve as a liaison with Harvard Medical School on educational issues. To enable Dana-Farber to have its own accredited training and continuing medical education programs, he will lead the development of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) offices. Dr. Katz will also work closely with Ian Matthew-Clayton, our Chief Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Officer, to ensure inclusion, diversity, and equity of our trainees. Dr. Katz brings an incredibly strong record of leadership and passion for mentorship that will support the growth of junior trainees and faculty. In addition to leading the Institute’s education and training initiatives, Dr. Katz will also provide mentorship to students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty at Dana-Farber. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Katz to Dana-Farber.

In addition to our online educational events, this year the EMBRACE Metastatic Breast Cancer Virtual Forum Series includes an in-person social event for adults living with metastatic breast cancer. If you live in the Boston area we hope you’ll join us for a community-building event at Muse Paintbar. Muse Paintbar Assembly Row 461 Artisan Way, Somerville, MA Friday, June 7 | 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. This gathering will include a group painting lesson, music, food, beverages, and the chance to meet others in the EMBRACE Metastatic Breast Cancer community! Please note: Registration is required and limited spots are available. For more information and to register, please visit https://lnkd.in/ea2HaFSh

Don’t miss the Helen Gurley Brown Presidential Summit on Women and Science. Happening online on June 5 from 2:00 – 3:15 p.m., you’ll hear from prominent leaders in the science community, celebrate and support women in research and medicine, and engage in a dynamic Q&A session. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ea5D4fEA

The latest advances in endometrial, cervical, and ovarian cancer research had top billing at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)'s Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer earlier this spring. Dana-Farber researchers shared their findings with clinicians, scientists, nurses, and trainees attending the event, considered the premier scientific event for professionals who treat and care for patients with gynecologic cancer. Presentations by Dana-Farber researchers included: -Combination of Immunotherapy and Anti-angiogenesis Drug Shows Potential in Endometrial Cancer A clinical trial led by Elizabeth Lee, MD, found that a combination of two drugs used to treat a form of kidney cancer has promise in patients with a hard-to-treat type of endometrial cancer. The drugs, avelumab and axitinib, exploit different vulnerabilities of endometrial cancer cells. Avelumab is an immune checkpoint inhibitor that exposes tumor cells to an immune system attack; axitinib blocks the growth of blood vessels in tumors. Together, they're approved as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced renal cell cancer. -Telehealth Intervention Found Beneficial for Patients with Peritoneal Carcinomatosis A pilot study led by Rachel Pozzar, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, and alexi wright, MD, MPH, suggests that a nurse-led telehealth intervention can improve outcomes for patients with advanced gynecologic or gastrointestinal cancers who develop peritoneal carcinomatosis, a condition in which tumor cells spread to the peritoneum, the thin membrane that lines the abdominal cavity. Surgical treatments for the condition often leave patients and family members struggling to cope with ostomy pouches, tubes draining the stomach or kidneys, or catheters draining the abdomen or area around the lungs. -Combination of Targeted Drugs Proves Comparable to Chemotherapy in Patients with Treatment-Resistant Form of Ovarian Cancer When high-grade serous ovarian cancer doesn't respond to platinum-based chemotherapy, treatment options are especially limited if patients' cancer cells don't carry a mutation in the BRCA genes. Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, reported the findings of an international clinical trial comparing a combination of two targeted drugs to standard chemotherapy in 358 such patients. The trial, dubbed the EPIK-O trial, returned mixed results. On the one hand, progression-free survival was no better among patients receiving the drugs alpelisib and olaparib than among those receiving standard chemotherapy. On the other hand, the rate of response to treatment was somewhat higher in the patients in the drug combination group than those in the chemotherapy group – 15.6% vs. 13.5%. The median duration of response was also modestly longer in the drug combination group – 7.4 months vs. 5.6 months. More on telehealth study: https://lnkd.in/euNBVzZA

Numerous studies conducted by Dana-Farber researchers show promising results for patients with endometrial, lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. The results of these studies, along with dozens of others led by Dana-Farber faculty, were presented at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting last month in California.   Notable research from Dana-Farber researchers included: Novel ADC and Immunotherapy Combo Shows Promise in Endometrial Cancer Subtype  Rebecca Porter, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist in the Gynecological Oncology Program of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers, presented results of a small, investigator-initiated phase 2 study of a novel combination of an antibody-drug conjugate and an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Blood Test May Identify Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Subtype Who Can Benefit from Combination Therapy  Pasi Jänne, MD, PhD, senior vice president for Translational Medicine, presented an update to his practice-changing FLAURA2 clinical trial published last year, revealing that patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) marked by a mutation in the EGFR gene fared significantly better when treated with the drug osimertinib plus platinum-based chemotherapy than with osimertinib alone. Exercise Program Can Improve Heart Function in Cancer Survivors  Cami Christopher, MPH, a research scientist in the Department of Medical Oncology, Population Sciences, presented findings suggesting that a moderate to vigorous aerobic and resistance exercise program can improve a key aspect of heart function in survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer. Study Provides First Large-Scale Look at Genetic Architecture of Prostate Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa  Timothy Rebbeck, PhD, the Vincent L. Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention, led the first large-scale genomic analysis of prostate cancer in sub-Saharan Africa which revealed that the genetic architecture of the disease – its basic underpinnings in abnormalities in DNA – is unique to Africa and varies across the continent. In addition, the AACR recognized Rebbeck, Christopher D.M. Fletcher, MD, FRCPath, and Gordon J. Freeman, PhD, with 2024 Scientific Achievement Awards during the Annual Meeting.  More: https://lnkd.in/etk8fwUp

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is hosting a Pharmacy Technician Careers Virtual Information Session on Wednesday, May 29th, from 5:30-6:30 pm. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eKbcmvpk