Current Issues: ACGT Announcement: "Another Major Breakthrough for ACGT Funded Research"

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

ACGT Announcement: "Another Major Breakthrough for ACGT Funded Research"

"Genetically altering a patient's immune cells has, for the first time, produced remissions in adults with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). In one patient, the disease vanished in eight days. The clinical trial, using engineered T-cells to treat five adults with ALL, was based in part on early funded research by ACGT. According to Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, ACGT Scientific Advisory Council member and Research Fellow, and senior author of the new study,"This is a very exciting finding for patients with B-cell ALL and a major achievement in the field of targeted immunotherapy. In adults this type of leukemia is a devastating, galloping disease." The study was published Wednesday in the journal, Science Translational Medicine."

Welcome!

Some blood cancer facts:

* Every four minutes, someone in the United States learns that they have a blood cancer.

* Every ten minutes, a child or adult dies from a blood cancer. This statistic represents nearly 148 people each day, or more than six people every hour.

* Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma will cause the deaths of an estimated 54,020 people in the United States this year.

* An estimated 137,260 people in the United States will be diagnosed with Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma this year.

*Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults under the age of 20. In general, the likelihood of dying from most types of leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma decreased from 1998 to 2007 (the most recent data available).

(Information statistics from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society 2010-2011)

NEWS FROM MY STATE OF MINNESOTA:

In Minnesota we have what is called the ‘Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics’ with the U of MN and the Mayo Clinic, which is such a wonderful thing for our State! Their website mentions: "The Partnership has once again earned the support of the legislature when it received the most recent installment in research support of $15 million in the 2006 legislative session. The Partnership has requested $70 million over a five year period and has so far received $32 million of that funding request."

According to the 'Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics' newsletter, "In 2007, the Partnership awarded $7.5 million in state-funded support to four new research teams and one infrastructure support project in the third round of reserach since 2003. It has also awarded $1 million to one of the first research teams to take discoveries toward commercialization." Also in 2007, the Minnesota legislature has approved $25 million in biennial funding for the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics and committed $8 million for each of the following two years.

Watch my blog for more recent updates.