Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Eric Lefkofsky: One Of The Most Unique Entrepreneurs Of Our Time



Eric Lefkofsky is a Jewish-American entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Tempus. It was his desire to help people who suffer from cancer that motivated him to take part in Tempus, which is a company that has made it its mission to change the way that cancer is dealt with. They are continuing to do so and have already done so by creating a database of information that draws from the treatment of previous cancer patients. In doing so, new patients can receive better focused treatment because their physicians have the kind of information in their hands that allows them to make decisions based on solid scientific data rather than taking shots in the dark.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Nigerian-born scientist wins award for his cancer-seeing glasses

Dr. Achilefu, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering
Dr. Achilefu, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering, and his team developed the imaging technology in cancer diagnosis into a wearable night vision-like goggles so surgeons could see the cancer cells while operating.
“They basically have to operate in the dark,” Bloomberg Businessweek quoted Dr. Achilefu, 52, as saying.
“I thought, what if we create something that let’s you see things that aren’t available to the ordinary human eye.”
Dr. Achilefu won a scholarship from the French government to study at the University of Nancy, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a regional newspaper in St. Louis, U.S., and is the 87th person to receive the annual award since it was established in 1931.
Married with two young children, Dr. Achilefu moved to St. Louis after he was hired by Mallinckrodt to start a new research department.
“Our efforts start with two words: ‘What if?’” Dr. Achilefu said during his acceptance speech.
“These words may sound simple, but they embody the belief that each person has the potential to make a difference, if only he or she can take the time to understand the problem.”
According to Bloomberg, the researchers’ technology requires two steps: First, surgeons inject a tiny quantity of an infrared fluorescent marker into the patient’s bloodstream. The peptides contained in the marker enables it to locate cancer cells and buries itself inside.
After the tracer flows through a patient’s body and clears from non-cancerous tissue – which lasts about four hours – the operation would begin. Wearing the goggle, the doctor can inspect tumours under an infra red light that reacts with the dye, causing cancer cells to glow from within.
This month, the goggles have been used on humans for the first time by surgeons at the Washington University School of Medicine.
Four patients suffering from breast cancer and over two dozen patients with melanoma or liver cancer have been operated on using the goggles since they were developed.
“The goggles function fantastically,” says Ryan Fields, a surgical oncologist who is collaborating with Dr. Achilefu to improve on the technology.
“They allow us to see the cells in real time, which is critical. Because the marker has not yet been FDA-approved, doctors are currently using a different, somewhat inferior marker that also reacts with infrared light.”
Julie Margenthaler, a breast cancer surgeon, says tens of thousands of women who had had breast cancer lumpectomies go back for second operations every year because of the inability to see the microscopic extent of the tumours.
“Imagine what it would mean if these glasses eliminated the need for follow-up surgery and the associated pain, inconvenience and anxiety.”
Dr. Achilefu and his team began work in 2012 after they received $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Before then, they had been working on a lean budget provided by the Department of Defence’s Breast Cancer Research Program.
After it was developed, the team spent years testing the technology on mice, rats, and rabbits to confirm the efficacy of the goggles.
“Nobody would believe us until we showed that the goggles work,” Dr. Achilefu says.
The Food and Drug Administration are still reviewing the goggles and a related dye Dr. Achilefu and his co-researchers developed, according to Washington University in St. Louis, a St. Louis based journal.
Dr. Achilefu says he intends to keep Washington University as the primary centre for clinical trials to evaluate the technology in patients.
“Making a difference in society should be the goal of everybody,” Dr. Achilefu

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Angelina Jolie I Got My Ovaries Removed I'm On a Mission to Live

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Angelina Jolie  
took a second big step in minimizing a cancer risk which she has been living with for years ... she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. 
Jolie told an emotional, dramatic story in a NY Times op-ed piece, in which she talked about her normal ... an 87% chance of developing breast cancer and a 50% chance of ovarian cancer, because she carries the BRCA1 gene mutation.
The actress took proactive steps with breast cancer 2 years ago by getting a double mastectomy.   She'd been seriously considering the second preventative procedure but she was pushed into action when medical tests revealed the possibility of ovarian cancer but in the early stages. 
Angelina underwent the procedure last week, and doctors found a small benign tumor on one ovary but no signs of cancer in her tissues. 
Jolie says she's now in menopause as a result of the surgery, and she can't have any more children. She stoically writes about the fact that she has to live with the possibility of cancer but adds, "I feel feminine, and grounded in the choices I am making for myself and my family.  l know my children will never have to say, 'Mom died of ovarian cancer.'"

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