NYSCF News Update | Vol 12, Issue 1

NEWSupdate VOLUME 12: ISSUE 1: 2019

N YS C F

The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute

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B R I N G I N G N E W H O PE TO WO M E N W ITH R E PRO D U C TI V E C A N C E R S

e have an enormous opportunity to improve outcomes for women with reproductive cancers. The groundbreaking stem cell technologies we have developed at NYSCF give us the power to find better and more personalized treatments.” –Susan L. Solomon, JD Ursula Matulonis, MD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), Laura Andres-Mar tin, PhD (NYSCF), Siddhar tha Mukherjee, MD, DPhil (Columbia University Ir ving Medical Center), and Carla Grandori, MD, PhD (SEngine Precision Medicine) Panel support provided by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, TESARO, and GSK

When women with a reproductive cancer (such as ovarian, cervical, or endometrial cancer) start treatment, they all go through the same drill. Surgery. Chemotherapy. More chemotherapy. Wait. If the cancer comes back, start again. The issue here is that due to severe underfunding of research into women’s reproductive cancers, this care plan has not changed in decades — most patients are prescribed the same therapies. But every patient’s cancer evolves in a unique manner, so we cannot expect the same drugs to work for everyone. And they don’t — survival rates have barely improved over the past 40 years. We need a better way to study and treat these devastating cancers, and the members of the NYSCF Women’s Reproductive Cancers Initiative (launched this April with a panel discussion featuring members of the Initiative’s Scientific Advisory Board — a collection of 15 world-leading researchers and physicians who have spearheaded breakthrough treatments, such as PARP inhibitors, across several cancer types) are ready to take on this challenge. Led by NYSCF’s Dr. Laura Andres-Martin, a pioneer in stem cell biology who has committed her career to applying these innovations to improve the way diseases are treated, the team is using samples of patient tumors to generate stem cells and organoids (3D aggregates of tumor tissue) that have an unlimited lifespan. These stem cells and organoids capture the uniqueness of each patient’s disease from their own cells, helping to illuminate how tumor cells interact, how the cancer started in the first place, and which treatments can stop it. This biobank of patient-specific tumor tissue that never “expires” will serve as a foundational resource for the research community to enable personalized cancer research and drug discovery.

explained Scientific Advisory Board member Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. “Creating a bank of this misinformation will help us understand the code that drives the growth of these cancers and then find a way to disrupt that code.” The Initiative will begin by focusing on ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is especially tricky: it is hard to detect before advanced stages and relapse rates are high (tumors return in over 75% of patients). Having a model in place that can help us identify targets for early detection and intervention will be a game-changer for this disease.

M E E T D R . L A U R A A N D R E S - M A RT I N SENIOR PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST, ONCOLOGY

Dr. Andres-Martin recently joined NYSCF to pioneer the Women’s Reproductive Cancers Initiative. Originally from Spain, Dr. Andres-Martin received her PhD from the University of Salamanca, followed by a postdoc at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she was a NYSCF – Druckenmiller Fellow. “Women with reproductive cancers have a major unmet medical need for effective treatments,” she says. “I am excited to be applying the latest discoveries in stem cell research to help meet this need.”

“If all of biology is information, then cancer is misinformation,”

F E AT U R E D I N T H I S I S S U E FA M I LY DA Y

ALUMNI MEETINGS

SPR I NG E V E N TS

MU LT IPL E SCL EROSIS

Students and parents experience the wonders of stem cell research p.3

When the world’s top researchers meet, ideas blossom p.5

What’s next for Alzheimer’s, type 1 diabetes, and gene editing? p.6

Toward new treatments for the disease’s most severe form p.7

Contact us at info@nyscf.org or 212.787.4111

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