15th World Congress on Cancer Therapy, Biomarkers & Clinical Research December 05-07, 2016 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Biography:

Colleen Huber NMD is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor in Tempe, Arizona.  She was the Keynote Speaker at the 2015 Euro Cancer Summit.  Dr. Huber is President of the Naturopathic Cancer Society.  She is a Naturopathic Oncologist and Fellow of the Naturopathic Oncology Research Institute.    She has been featured in the books America’s Best Cancer Doctors and Defeat Cancer.  She authored the largest and longest study in medical history on sugar intake in cancer patients, which was reported in media around the world in 2014.  Her academic writing has appeared in The Lancet and Cancer Strategies Journal, and other medical journals.

Abstract:

Recent recommendations for the more widespread prescription of statin drugs in the U.S. have generated controversy.  Cholesterol is commonly thought to be the enemy of good health.  On the other hand, previous research has established the necessity of cholesterol in production of Vitamin D and steroid hormones, among other purposes, some of which have been shown to have anti-cancer effect.  We compare total serum cholesterol (TC) in cancer survivors vs cancer fatalities, and we assess the value of deliberately lowering TC among cancer patients.  We also examined diet in the survivors as well as those who then died of cancer.

In this original previously unpublished research, we conducted a double-blind retrospective case series, in which we looked back at data from all 255 cancer patients who came to and were treated by our clinic with either current dietary information, and/or a recent serum TC level, measured by an unaffiliated laboratory or an unaffiliated clinic over the previous seven years, comparing TC in the surviving cancer patients versus those cancer patients who died during that time.

Surviving cancer patients had 24.0 points higher mean total cholesterol than the mean for deceased cancer patients.  A number of dietary differences between cancer survivors and those who then died of cancer were also found to be notable.

Caution is advised before attempting to lower cholesterol in cancer patients with close to normal TC levels.  Those cancer patients with higher TC were more likely to survive their cancer.

Biography:

G Mike Makrigiorgos is a Professor of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Medical Physics & Biophysics Division at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, Harvard Medical School. He also directs the DNA technology laboratory and the radiation pre-clinical facility. His research interests include the development of novel DNA technologies for molecular diagnostics in oncology and the identification of circulating cancer biomarkers. He is the inventor of several PCR-based techniques for molecular diagnostics, including COLD-PCR and NaME-PrO technologies. He is a Member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Chemistry and has published over 150 articles, reviews and book chapters.

Abstract:

Circulating DNA is poised to become a widely used tool for repeated assessment of cancer mutation and methylation status during the course of therapy. Removing the high excess wild type DNA fraction from circulating DNA allows enrichment of variant DNA and boosts the potential of all endpoint detection technologies, including sequencing. We present nuclease-assisted mutation enrichment, NaME, a simple and powerful approach to remove wild type DNA from large gene pools simultaneously, in order to focus sequencing on clinically relevant DNA alterations. This single-step approach retains current sample preparation protocols almost unchanged and combines seamlessly with downstream technologies such as HRM, COLD-PCR, ddPCR and next generation sequencing. Application in clinical samples and liquid biopsies will be presented.

Biography:

Dr. Mu has completed his Ph.D. from Gunma University/Japan and postdoctoral studies at Kyoto University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh. He is the board certified toxicologist (D.A.B.T.) and a principal investigate at the FDA. He has published more than 25 papers in reputed journals and is interested in the development of biomarkers for allergic risk assessment.

Abstract:

There is an increase in the incidence of allergy/immunotoxicity-related post-market adverse events associated with medical devices. Biomarkers are commonly used in toxicology for risk assessment and clinically as diagnostic and monitoring tests. We developed a new in vitro model where human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) serve as immunomodulators for biomarker development specifically for metal related allergenicity. The cell surface proteins were determined quantitatively. One of the purposes is to know whether the biomodulator system is transferable from the dendritic cell (DC) to the PBMC. Out of 12 surface proteins selected from the first tier selection that were screened, we found consistency of BM1 performance between DC and PBMC, and other 3 proteins (BM2, BM3 and BM4) showed promise. The expression of BM1 was down- regulated significantly following exposure to three well-known metallic allergens (Cobalt (II) chloride, nickel (II) sulfate, potassium dichromate (VI)), while the expression remained unchanged when exposed to two metallic nonallergens (lead (IV) acetate, magnesium (II) chloride) compared to untreated cells. Data from four healthy donors showed the same pattern. These results indicate that BM1 shows promise for use as a pre-clinical biomarker in screening potential allergenic risks to metal-containing devices. Further validation is planned.