I'm very proud to have teamed up with Dr. Ross Camidge from the University of Colorado in writing an editorial piece for the current issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology called "Have Mutation, Will Travel: Utilizing Online Patient Communities and New Trial Strategies to Optimize Clinical Research in the Era of Molecularly Diverse Oncology".

Following the terrific presentations by Drs. Ben Solomon and Ross Camidge on the science and clinical experience with the novel ALK inhibitor XALKORI (crizotinib), we had a question and answer session, which is now available as a podcast. Here's the audio podcast and transcript for it (not really a video component for this one).

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drs-solomon-and-camidge-qa-on-alk-inhibition-transcript

After the last several posts have discussed our friend and lung cancer expert Dr. Ross Camidge, we'll turn to the related topic of ROS mutations, which have been the subject of research by Dr. Ross Camidge (though apparently not named for him) and also researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. This is a gene for a DNA repair protein, and the tyrosine kinase binding portion (the part that gets turned on to set off a cascade of downstream intracellular events) for ROS1 is very similar to that for ALK.

Continuing with Dr. Ross Camidge as our focus (see yesterday's post for a brief update from him on the afatinib/cetuximab trial), today let's turn to the recent webinar program he and Dr. Ben Solomon did with us on the subject of ALK Inhibition: From Biology to FDA-Approved Therapy for Advanced NSCLC". After Dr.

Several weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to be joined by not one but two international stars in lung cancer research that is being translated directly from lab bench to bedside of the patient. I don't think there's a more clear and inspiring example of good science leading to effective therapy, albeit for a limited patient population, than the story of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor crizotinib (recently FDA approved and commercially launched as XALKORI) for patients with an EML4-ALK rearrangement (approximately 4% of the broader NSCLC population). Drs.

Here's the second talk from our recent webinar, partnering with LUNGevity Foundation to cover the ASCO Highlights in Lung Cancer, and this talk followed after

I apologize if it seems that the updates about ASCO have been slow in coming. This is mostly because the lung cancer program this year has most of the higher profile presentations occurring in the second half of the meeting, which we're just getting into. And, truth be told, this isn't going to be a blockbuster year for developments in lung cancer. But let's review what we've found out about thus far.

A year ago, almost to the day, we presented an excellent podcast by Dr. Ross Camidge at the University of Colorado, describing the very new and promising work on the Pfizer investigational agent crizotinib for the subset (4-5% of patients with NSCLC) who have an ALK rearrangement.