This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Journal Honors Brian G. Till, MD, As Recipient of the 2008 JCO Young Investigator Award

The Young Investigator Award (YIA), developed by the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), is a means of providing funding opportunities to young oncologists who are beginning their careers and do not have the full extent of resources available to more established researchers. The original idea for JCO to sponsor a YIA came from George Canellos, MD, during his 1993 to 1994 tenure as ASCO's president as an opportunity for the journal to encourage researchers in the beginning of their careers.

The Research

Dissatisfied with the negative side effects associated with chemotherapy, Dr Till seeks to find an alternative cancer treatment with fewer side effects. His current research involves examining adoptive immunotherapy with genetically modified T cells as a treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and mantle-cell lymphoma.

He and a group of researchers at the City of Hope Cancer Center in southern California will perform an apheresis procedure on patients with lymphoma to collect WBCs. They will then transfect those cells by electroporation and introduce plasmid containing a neomycin-resistance gene that encodes the receptor into the cells. Their next step will be to expand the surviving G418 antibiotic-resistant cells in bulk culture until a therapeutic number has been reached and to test the cells to make sure that they can both express the receptor and kill CD20-positive cells.

With the help of the YIA funds, Dr Till will be infusing patients with three different rounds of modified T cells at increasing doses. Then, patients will be given low-dose interleukin-2 injections to help the T cells grow. Dr. Till anticipates this study will allow him to test the safety of this treatment method while looking at its effects on the patients’ disease course.

About Dr Till

Dr Till received his MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He has received numerous awards such as the National Institutes of Health Student Summer Research Award from the University of Chicago, a University of Washington General Clinical Research Center Pilot and Feasibility Grant, and the American Society of Hematology Travel Award.

Dr Till became interested in translational research after taking part in cancer-related projects during the early phase of his clinical career. While conducting research in oncology, Dr Till developed a close relationship with his patients and wished to help them by learning about their incurable illnesses.

In the future, Dr Till would like to work as a research oncologist at a major academic clinical setting such as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and to continue treating patients with lymphoma.

The editors of JCO are delighted to honor Dr. Till for his commitment to translational research.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                            What's this?