l quick takes REsEaRCH bRiEFs
THE Uab Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Deep South Network for
Cancer Control has received a five-year,
$6-million grant from the National
Cancer Institute (NCI) to continue its
work in reducing cancer disparities in
minority and medically underserved poor
populations in Alabama and Mississippi.
The funding, from the NCI’s Center
to Reduce Cancer health Disparities,
establishes UAB as one of six National
Community Network Program Centers.
This is the third five-year NCI grant the
Deep South Network has received.
The new grant will fund the network’s
first randomized community interven-
tions into cancer research within its target
areas. The research project will look at
the sociocultural influence on dietary
intake among black women in the Deep
South and assess the potential of regular
physical activity to reduce substantially
the risk for developing and dying from
cancer. Monica Baskin, Ph.D., associate
professor of preventive medicine, will lead
these efforts by conducting a 20-week
weight-loss intervention in eight of the 22
counties within the network that provide
peer and community support during the
24-month intervention.
The Deep South Network targets two
poor, rural regions—Alabama’s Black
Belt and the Mississippi Delta—and
two urban areas—Jefferson County,
Ala., and the hattiesburg/Laurel, Miss.,
metropolitan region. The network has
trained more than 1,000 volunteers,
called community health advisors trained
as research partners (ChARPs), in
these communities to educate family and
friends about the importance of preven-
tion and early detection of cancer.
Deep South Network Receives Renewal
Soong Receives AJCC Award sENg-jaw sOONg, PH.D., professor emeritus of medicine, director emeritus of
the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Unit,
and associate director emeritus of the UAB
Comprehensive Cancer Center, received a
special recognition from the American Joint
Committee on Cancer (AJCC) at its recent
annual meeting in Chicago for his “efforts
to advance AJCC TNM (tumor, node,
metastasis) staging system and classifica-
tion of melanoma through development of
pioneering technology for the prediction of
patient-specific clinical outcome,” which is
useful for patient treatment planning and
management.
Dr. Soong is internationally known for
his research on melanoma, particularly in
the area of statistical modeling of melano-
ma prognosis and staging. As chair of the
AJCC Statistical Task Force and vice chair
of the Melanoma Staging Committee, Dr.
Soong has played a vital role in reshaping
the criteria for staging and classification
of melanoma and has demonstrated the
value of evidence-based staging, which
has influenced many additional cancer-
staging committees. he continues to play
an important role in the AJCC as it moves
into the area of electronic staging and pre-
dictive tools, for which his contributions
have been pioneering.
Experimental Drug for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Shows Promise
aN ExPERimENTaL drug for hodgkin’s lymphoma studied at the UAB Comprehensive
Cancer Center has shown beneficial effects in
stopping tumor growth with moderate side-
effects, according to findings published in the
New England Journal of Medicine.
The phase 1 trial was designed to establish a
maximum tolerated dose of brentuximab vedo-
tin (SGN-35), a combination of the monoclo-
nal antibody cAC10 and an antitubulin agent,
monomethyl auristatin e (MMAe), developed
by Seattle Genetics. Using a dose-escalating
protocol, the researchers administered a dose of
0.1 to 3.6 mg per kilogram of body weight.
“Our primary goal was to establish the
maximum tolerated dose, one that would not
cause adverse side effects of SGN-35,” says
Andres Forero, M.D., Cancer Center senior
scientist and a senior author of the study. “In
the process, we were pleased to discover that
positive responses were observed in 17 of the
45 patients involved in the study, including
11 complete remissions.”
As many as 30 percent of hodgkin’s dis-
ease patients don’t respond to conventional
therapy, and the disease kills an estimated
1,300 people annually in the United States
alone. Because hodgkin’s disease frequently
strikes young adults, these premature deaths
can have a significant social impact.
Dr. Forero says tumor regression lasting
more than nine months was noted in 36 of
the 42 patients who could be evaluated.
Research was funded by Seattle Genetics.
Collaborators are the University of Texas
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; Washington
University, St. Louis, and Weill Medical
College of Cornell University.
jONas s. aLmEiDa, Ph.D., has joined the UAB
Comprehensive Cancer
Center as a senior scientist
and professor of pathology.
he is the inaugural direc-
tor of the Department of
Pathology’s new Division of
Informatics, which began in
January 2011 with his arrival.
Prior to coming to UAB,
Dr. Almeida was a profes-
sor of bioinformatics at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center and an adjunct professor at the
University of Texas health Science Center
at houston from 2006 to 2010. Prior to that,
he served as an associate professor of bioin-
formatics at the Medical University of South
Carolina in Charleston.
Born in Portugal and raised
in Angola, Dr. Almeida even-
tually returned to Lisbon,
receiving his undergraduate
degree at the University of
Lisbon. After obtaining his
Ph.D. in biological engi-
neering in Lisbon at the
University Nova in 1995, he
came to the United States
as a postdoctoral fellow in
microbial ecology at the
University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory.
Dr. Almeida has 120 peer-reviewed publi-
cations to his name and is an internationally
recognized authority in the field of bioin-
formatics. his main areas of interest include
bioinformatics, computational statistics and
computational infrastructure for integration
of data acquisition and analysis. Dr. Almeida
is involved in a number of collaborative
research initiatives including the Center for
Translational Science Awards and the Cancer
Genome Atlas.
The Division of Informatics pursues
computational research and tool develop-
ment to integrate biomolecular and clinical
data and advance personalized medicine.
Accordingly, collaborative research is config-
ured to involve computational statisticians and
clinical researchers. The resources developed
and maintained at the division to support
this research range from novel integrative
algorithms and the corresponding software
libraries to novel integrative computational
infrastructure.
Grizzle Named Senior Editor
wiLLiam E. gRizzLE, M.D., Ph.D., a longtime member of the editorial board
of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of
the American Association for Cancer
Research (AACR), has accepted an invi-
tation to serve as a senior editor of the
publication.
Dr. Grizzle is a senior scientist in the
Cancer Center and director of the UAB
Tissue Collection and Banking Facility,
which provides tissue samples to UAB
researchers. he also is a past president of
the International Society of Biological and
environmental Repositories (ISBeR).
In December 2010, Dr. Grizzle
delivered the plenary keynote address at
the eighth Annual Conference of the
Australasian Biospecimens Network
Association (ABNA) in Brisbane,
Australia. he spoke on factors that affect
the quality and usefulness of tissues in
biomedical research.
Almeida Joins Cancer Center
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