Study Shows 14-Month Survival, Some Heart AEs for Breast Cancer Patients on Tykerb/Herceptin Combo

December 16, 2009

The Phase III study, presented last week at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, involved 296 women with HER2-positive breast cancer whose cancer had recurred despite receiving a median of three previous Herceptin-based treatments. "The data presented at the San Antonio congress showed that patients overcame resistance to [Herceptin] with the introduction of the [Tykerb/Herceptin] combination," GSK said in a statement.

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Sumit Chanda

Associate Professor
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute

Unraveling Complex Host-Pathogen

The Chanda lab is studying cellular proteins required for both influenza A and retrovirus/HIV infection as well as novel molecules that regulate, or respond to, Pattern Recognition Receptor (PRR) signaling. In order to elucidate the repertoire of host proteins required for viral infection, and understand the molecular strategies adapted by these viruses as countermeasures to innate immune response, his lab uses a series of systems-level approaches, including genome-wide RNAi, proteomics and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, and high content imaging. This approach is helping them to build a comprehensive cellular 'roadmap' exploited by these viruses to enable their propagation within a cell.
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Regulation and Function of miR-218 in Gastric Cancer Metastasis
Tie, Pan et al., PLoS Genetics
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Method to Label and Isolate N-terminal Peptides from Human Plasma
Wildes and Wells, PNAS
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People on the Move

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Professor Leena Peltonen-Palotie died this week of cancer at her home in Finland, according to the Sanger Institute. Peltonen-Palotie was head of human genetics at Wellcome Trust, and she held appointments at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard and the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland.

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Adrian Dillon will resign from his job as executive VP of finance and administration and CFO of Agilent Technologies to become chief financial and administrative officer at Skype. He will be replaced at the beginning of April by Didier Hirsch, who currently is VP of corporate controllership and taxes and who will serve as acting CFO.
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Study Shows 14-Month Survival, Some Heart AEs for Breast Cancer Patients on Tykerb/Herceptin Combo

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