Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine has formed the TTUHSC SOM Cancer Center to focus on the creation of new cancer-fighting drugs for children and adults, announced Steven Berk, M.D., dean, School of Medicine.
A team of 17 research scientists from the University of Southern California have been recruited to TTUHSC to combine their ongoing laboratory and clinical cancer research with the existing TTUHSC clinical oncology team, led by Everardo Cobos, M.D., associate dean for Oncology Programs, Berk said. Lead investigators for the team are C. Patrick Reynolds, M.D., Ph.D.; Barry Maurer, M.D., Ph.D.; Min Kang, Pharm.D. and Cobos.
“We are extremely proud to welcome this research team to Texas and to the School of Medicine,” Berk said. “They will join forces with our excellent clinical oncology team to bring exciting new anti-cancer drugs to patients across the South Plains. The formation of the Cancer Center, the only academic cancer center in West Texas, will provide new approaches to cancer for patients throughout our region.”
Forming the foundation of the Cancer Center’s work will be laboratory research and cancer clinical trials, especially those addressing the needs of this region’s rural, uninsured, aging and Hispanic populations, said TTUHSC President John C. Baldwin, M.D.
“Research is critical as we find new ways to treat this disease,” Baldwin said. “This center will allow us to enlarge our existing cancer program and bring research and clinical scientists together in a coordinated team environment. We are encouraging research leading to new approaches to diagnosis, assessing extent of diseases and predicting how our patients will respond to therapy. This is a monumental research effort for TTUHSC and this region.”
Reynolds, who will also serve as executive director of the center, and the team are ready to bring a new dimension to the cancer fight in Texas.
“This new team will interact with all components of the TTU System, other academic institutions in Texas, and clinical centers in the region to promote collaboration in cancer research,” Reynolds said. “We have formed the South Plains Oncology Consortium (SPOC), to bring together cancer treatment centers throughout the region to carry out cutting-edge clinical trials.”
Reynolds’ work using a drug derived from vitamin A (isotretinoin) to treat neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer, improved survival rates and is considered the standard of care in treating this disease, Berk said.
Reynolds, Maurer and other team members pioneered the use of a drug based on vitamin A, Fenretinide, to treat cancer cells in a totally new way. Working with their collaborators at the National Cancer Institute and the University of Southern California, the team has demonstrated exciting clinical results with Fenretinide in treating adults with lymphomas, Berk said.
