Several faculty members of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio will lead committees and give 24 poster presentations at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting June 4-8 in Chicago. The meeting, considered to be the largest cancer meeting in the country, has the theme “Advancing Quality through Innovation.”

Tyler Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, serves on the meeting’s Scientific Program Committee and will chair a session on experimental therapeutics.
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Dr. Curiel serves on Scientific Program Committee
For a third year, Tyler Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, is serving on the meeting’s Scientific Program Committee. Dr. Curiel was elected to serve as leader of the Developmental Therapeutics – Clinical Pharmacology and Immunotherapy Track from June 2010 to June 2011. According to Dr. Curiel, novel cancer therapeutics are more focused on rationally designed and targeted approaches. The goal is to identify pathways vital to the cancer, but less important to the host to maximize tumor destruction with minimal side effects.

For the June meeting, Dr. Curiel will chair and moderate a session on experimental therapeutics. “The papers we selected for oral presentations and discussions are those that have potentially paradigm-shifting or game-changing potential,” he said. “We are looking for original ways to attack cancer that have a sound rationale predicting that they can work far better than current agents. We don’t want just small incremental advances in what we already know.

Peter Ravdin, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, will chair a session on the management of elderly women with breast cancer.

Dr. Ravdin to moderate session on breast cancer
Peter Ravdin, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, will chair and moderate a session on the management of elderly women with breast cancer. Dr. Ravdin rejoined the faculty in March as director of the Breast Health Clinic, part of the UT Health Science Center’s Cancer Therapy & Research Center.

While he was at the Health Science Center before, Dr. Ravdin led major clinical trials, such as the one leading to Food and Drug Administration approval of Taxotere for breast cancer treatment. He later developed a computerized decision-making tool called “Adjuvant!” that has helped women and their physicians estimate the woman’s risk of relapse after breast cancer surgery.

Four faculty members to give 24 poster presentations
Four faculty are members of teams presenting posters:

• Frank Giles, M.B., M.D., professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, is presenting four abstracts on glioblastoma and both acute and chronic myeloid leukemia.
  
• Alain Mita, M.D., assistant professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, is presenting eight abstracts stemming from clinical trials to treat advanced cancers of the lung, pancreas and skin.
  
• Patricia Sanchez-Diaz, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute, is first author on two abstracts on pediatric solid tumors.
  
• John Sarantopoulos, M.D., assistant professor of medicine/hematology and medical oncology, is presenting 10 abstracts on glioma, malignant melanoma, prostate and testicular cancers and on liver function in various advanced tumors.

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The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the elite academic cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center, and is one of only three in Texas. A leader in developing new drugs to treat cancer, the CTRC Institute for Drug Development (IDD) conducts one of the largest oncology Phase I clinical drug programs in the world, and participates in development of cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. For more information, visit www.ctrc.net.