Fox Chase Cancer Center News

PHILADELPHIA (October 25, 2010) – Fox Chase Cancer Center will host the Jane Pepper Women’s Cancer Symposium on November 6, 2010, from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on their main Campus (333 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia). The symposium will convene oncologists, cancer survivors and their families, authors, and interested members of the community to discuss issues surrounding women’s cancers and to celebrate survivorship. The series was named in honor of Jane Pepper, past President of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and her late husband G.

PHILADELPHIA (October 21, 2010) – Andy Andrews, PhD, has joined Fox Chase Cancer Center as an assistant professor in the Cancer Biology Program. Andrews comes to Fox Chase after concluding a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado in the lab of HHMI Investigator Dr. Karolin Luger, PhD. His area of focus is the field of epigenetics, which deals with changes in gene expression controlled by mechanisms outside of the underlying DNA sequence.

PHILADELPHIA (October 19, 2010) – Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), an aggressive and rare malignancy, is often initially misdiagnosed as an infection or rash. However, getting the correct diagnosis quickly is critical for patients because the disease spreads beyond the breast in a matter of just days or weeks.

PHILADELPHIA (October 15, 2010) – Prashant C. Shah, MD, has joined Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Department of Surgical Oncology as an attending surgeon in the Division of Thoracic Oncology. He specializes in complex thoracic cancer cases, minimally invasive foregut/esophageal surgery, VATS lung and mediastinal surgery, and the surgical management of mesothelioma. He also has specialized training in treating patients with many types of benign thoracic surgical problems, such as GERD, hyperhidrosis, Barrett’s esophagus, and achalasia.

PHILADELPHIA (October 12, 2010) – In an unexpected twist, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers find that the loss of a single protein, Nedd9, initially slows cancer formation but then makes the tumors that do arise more aggressive. The good news, though, is that the lack of Nedd9 also makes the aggressive tumors more sensitive to a class of drugs that are already used in the clinic.

PHILADELPHIA (October 10, 2010) – Fox Chase Cancer Center has received a grant from The Philadelphia Foundation’s Lola E. Douglass and Margaret E. Demment funds to launch Prostate REACH, a new initiative aimed at making Fox Chase’s existing Prostate Cancer Risk Assessment Program more accessible to high-risk men through convenient community locations and patient navigation services. 

PHILADELPHIA (October 10, 2010) – When it came time for Ariel Silverman, a 12-year-old Bat Mitzvah candidate from Upper Dublin, to choose her mitzvah project, the choice was clear. She decided to combine her love of dogs with her willingness to support cancer research by raising money for Fox Chase Cancer Center’s annual charity dog-walk—Paws for the Cause.

PHILADELPHIA (September 21, 2010) – Molecularly targeted therapies can reduce tumors rapidly. However, not all tumors respond to the drugs, and even those that do often develop resistance over time. Looking for a way to combat the problem of resistance, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center hypothesized that hitting already weakened cancer cells with a second targeted agent could kill them—but only if it was the right second agent.