As the 2007 Walk Across Southeastern Connecticut is approaching, the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation (TBBCF) announced that The Scientific Advisory Board awarded a fourth $100,000 breast cancer research grant last month. This grant symbolizes the endless effort the walkers, volunteers and donors are putting forth to eradicate breast cancer. It is these grant dollars that will fund a cure - dollars that are being directed towards research and not administrative costs. It is your commitment and passion that will bring an end to this devastating disease. The TBBCF thanks you, but more importantly breast cancer patients, families and friends thank you.
The TBBCF awarded a two year post-doctoral research fellowship to Dr. Dongjoo Lee to work on "The Chemical Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Carbohydrate Based Anticancer Vaccines" at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The work will be done under the mentorship of Professor Samuel Danishefsky who is the Kettering Professor and Head of Bioorganic Chemistry.
The Danishefsky laboratories have a long standing program directed toward the design, chemical synthesis, and clinical evaluation of synthetic carbohydrate-based anti-tumor vaccines and indeed are considered world-leading in this area. The origin of this program rises from the discovery of abnormal sugar molecules, known as carbohydrate antigens, present on the surface of tumor cells. The realization that these molecules could be prepared in the laboratory by total chemical synthesis pointed to the use of such molecules for cancer vaccines (e.g. cardisil). When vaccinated with these molecules, the immune systems of both mice and men produce anti-bodies that recognize and bind to the surface of tumor cells. It is envisioned that these antibodies will in turn mark the cancer cells for destruction; thereby using the patients own defense mechanism (immune system) to fight metathesis. There has also been an expanding bank of preclinical studies and clinical trials demonstrating the benefit of administered monoclonal antibodies against cell surface antigens on solid tumors.
Since the vaccine is made under the exquisite control of laboratory chemical synthesis, it is hoped that the vaccine will have a much better chance of targeting cancer cells for destruction and allow Dr. Lee to "tailor make" the vaccines for different cancers. For instance the carbohydrate antigens on a breast cancer cell may be somewhat different from those on a prostate cancer cell.
Since these vaccines are non-toxic and have no known debilitating side effects (only redness at the site of injection), it is hoped that they can go quickly into clinical trials held at Memorial Sloan Kettering. After Dr. Lee has completed his target molecule he will have the opportunity of collaborating with the immunologists and clinicians at MSKCC as his compounds are tested.
"This is an exciting time in a very interesting program", according to Prof. Danishefsky. We anticipate that Dr. Lee will be preparing some of the multivalent carbohydrate vaccines that have been mentioned above".
Dr. Lee came to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from the University of PA and the synthetic labs of Prof. Amos Smith. During his thesis work for his PhD with Smith he completed a total synthesis of (+)-Tedanolide, a novel macrolide that has potent antitumor activity. He is a native of South Korea and received his B. S. and M. S. from the Department of Pharmacy at the Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea.
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