Fred Hutchinson Science and General News Releases

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center announces 2010 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Awardees

March 08, 2010

SEATTLE March 8, 2010 Thirteen graduate students from institutes throughout North America have been chosen to receive the 2010 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Nominations were solicited internationally; the winners were selected on the basis of the quality, originality and significance of their work.

The recipients, all advanced students at or near the completion of their studies in the biological sciences, will participate in a scientific symposium May 7 at the Hutchinson Center. The symposium will include scientific presentations by the awardees as well as poster presentations by Hutchinson Center graduate students.

The award, established in 2000, honors the late Harold M. Weintraub, Ph.D., a founding member of the Center's Basic Sciences Division, who in 1995 died from brain cancer at age 49. Weintraub was an international leader in the field of molecular biology; among his many contributions, he identified genes responsible for instructing cells to differentiate, or develop, into specific tissues such as muscle and bone.

"Hal was one of the most outstanding scientists of his generation, as well as one of the most unpretentious. Hal had the knack of identifying the important questions in biology and designing experimental approaches that were creative, simple and elegant," said Mark Groudine, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director the Hutchinson Center and a former friend and colleague of Weintraub.

"By nurturing colleagues, students and postdocs, and helping all of us become better scientists, Hal was instrumental in establishing the collegial atmosphere at the Hutchinson Center. We believe having a symposium recognizing the achievements of young scientists is a great way to honor Hal and the recipients of this award," said Groudine, who was instrumental in establishing the award.

The award recipients will receive a certificate, travel expenses and an honorarium from the Weintraub and Groudine Fund, established to foster intellectual exchange through the promotion of programs for graduate students, fellows and visiting scholars.

Editor's note: A complete list of 2010 Weintraub awardees follows. To receive a research summary and CV of any of the recipients, please contact Carol Insalaco, Media Relations assistant, 206-667-5469 or <cinsalac@fhcrc.org>. Digital photos of most of the awardees are available as well.

MEDIA CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

2010 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award Recipients

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.)
Yaniv Erlich (Hometown: Ra'anana, Israel)
Ph.D. candidate, Watson School of Biological Sciences

Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)
Mamta Tahiliani (Hometown: San Jose, Calif.)
Ph.D. in Immunology awarded in 2009

Harvard University/Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.)
Erez Lieberman-Aiden (Hometown: New York, N.Y.)
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Applied Math, Harvard/MIT Division of Health Science and Technology

Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.)
Deok-Ho Kim (Hometown: Baltimore, Md./Seoul, Korea)
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.)
Aaron Andalman (Hometown: Takoma Park, Md.)
Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Science awarded in 2009

Yasemin Sancak (Hometown: Mugla, Turkey)
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biology

Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
Hannah Seidel (Hometown: St. Louis, Mo.)
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)
Maulik Patel (Hometown: Farmingdale, N.Y.)
Ph.D. in Neuroscience awarded in 2009

University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, Calif.)
Melody Wu (Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan)
Ph.D. candidate, Neuroscience Graduate Program

University of Massachusetts Medical School (Worcester, Mass.)
Chengjian Li (Hometown: Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China)
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

University of Massachusetts Medical School (Worcester, Mass.)/Gulbenkian Ph.D. Program (Portugal)
Pedro Batista (Hometown: Lisbon, Portugal)
Ph.D. candidate, Program in Molecular Medicine and Gulbenkian Ph.D.
Program in Biomedicine

University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle, Wash.)
Bungo Akiyoshi (Hometown: Kakegawa, Japan)
Ph.D. candidate, Molecular and Cellular Biology program

Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)
Allison Carey (Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Ph.D./M.D. candidate, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program

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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit www.fhcrc.org.

Dr. Harmit Malik receives Vilcek Prize for creative promise in biomedical science

March 04, 2010

SEATTLE March 4, 2010 Harmit Singh Malik, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has received the 2010 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. He received the honor, which carries a $25,000 cash prize, for his research on the co-evolution of humans and diseases.

The annual Vilcek Foundation awards celebrate "immigrant achievement in biomedical science and arts." Malik was among four awardees this year. Others include chef Varin Keokitvon of Seattle's FareStart, biochemist Alexander Varshavsky and culinary innovator José Andrés. Malik and his fellow award recipients will be honored at the Foundation’s fifth annual awards presentation April 7 in New York City.

The Vilcek Prizes epitomize the mission of the Vilcek Foundation, which was formed by Jan and Marica Vilcek to honor the contributions of foreign-born individuals in the United States.

Malik, a native of India, is an associate member of the Hutchinson Center's Basic Sciences Division and an affiliate assistant professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He also is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist.

Malik studies genetic conflict. He sees battles raging within a cell’s nucleus as genes jockey for evolutionary dominance. These clashes can have a long-term impact on organisms, as they sometimes alter the function of essential genes. Malik uses biochemistry and genomics to study the causes and consequences of these genetic conflicts in yeast, fruit flies and other model organisms. His work has offered novel explanations in two disciplines: host-pathogen interactions and the evolution of structural DNA elements (centromeres) that are critical for proper cell division.

Recently, Malik and colleagues have turned their attention to the phenomenon of "viral mimicry," in which viral proteins can resemble host proteins to hijack important cellular functions. His lab showed that host proteins can evolve to defeat viral mimicry, providing yet another nuance to a never-ending "arms race" between hosts and viruses.

His lab also has shown that centromeres and the proteins that bind them evolve unusually rapidly in animal genomes. His lab hypothesized and is testing the model that such a genetic conflict may recurrently drive the onset of reproductive barriers between recently diverged species.

Malik received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. He completed his doctoral work in molecular evolutionary biology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y., where, under the mentorship of Tom Eickbush, Ph.D., he first became intrigued by the study of genetic conflict. Malik joined the Hutchinson Center faculty in 2003. He is a frequent speaker in local Seattle forums on the merits of combining evolutionary approaches for the study and treatment of medically important diseases.

Note for media only: Click here to download a high-resolution photo of Dr. Malik

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

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Common osteoporosis drugs are associated with a decrease in risk of breast cancer

March 02, 2010

SEATTLE March 2, 2010 Women who take some types of bone-building drugs used to prevent and treat osteoporosis may be at lower risk of breast cancer, according to a study by U.S. researchers published today in the British Journal of Cancer.

The study found that women who used bisphosphonate drugs, such as Fosamax, Boniva and Zometa, for more than two years had a nearly 40 percent reduction in risk as compared to those who did not, according to lead author Polly Newcomb, Ph.D., M.P.H., head of the Cancer Prevention Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

"This large study provides new evidence that the use of bisphosphonates is associated with a potentially important reduction in breast cancer risk," Newcomb said.

The protective effect was observed only among women who were not obese. "Obese women may have elevated estrogen levels, so underlying hormones may influence the ability of bisphosphonates to reduce breast cancer risk," Newcomb said.

The way in which these drugs may prevent breast cancer is not known, but several research observations may be relevant. "These drugs may affect cell function and be important in cell growth and death specifically the death of tumors or even premalignant disease," Newcomb said. Researchers have found that some kinds of bisphosphonates directly cause tumor apoptosis (cellular suicide), inhibit angiogenesis (prevent tumors from establishing a blood supply) and prevent tumor-cell adhesion (the ability of cancer cells to bind to one another).

The study involved nearly 6,000 Wisconsin women, aged 20 to 69. Half had been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and, for comparison purposes, half had not. The women were interviewed about their bone health their history of fractures, whether they’d been diagnosed with osteoporosis and their history of bisphosphonate use.

Breast cancer risk factors such as first-degree family history of the disease, age at first birth, postmenopausal hormone use and body mass index were accounted for in the analysis. "Because we were able to account for important cofounders, these findings may reflect real benefits due to the anti-tumor mechanisms of these medications," the authors wrote.

The National Cancer Institute funded the study, which was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Note for media only: To arrange an interview with Newcomb or obtain a copy of the British Journal of Cancer paper, "Bisphosphonates for Osteoporosis Treatment are Associated with Reduced Breast Cancer Risk," please contact Kristen Woodward, 206-667-5095 or kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

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About Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Hutchinson Center researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. www.fhcrc.org

About the British Journal of Cancer (BJC)
The BJC is owned by Cancer Research UK. Its mission is to encourage communication of the very best cancer research from laboratories and clinics in all countries. Broad coverage, its editorial independence and consistent high standards have made BJC one of the world’s premier general cancer journals. http://www.nature.com/bjc

Climb to Fight Breast Cancer offers challenging new peaks

February 24, 2010

SEATTLE Feb. 24, 2010 Mount Shasta in California and Denali in Alaska are new additions to the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer® benefiting Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The expeditions, offered for the first time in 2010, expand the opportunity for participants of all skill levels to have fun and be challenged in honor of those who have battled breast cancer.
Mount Shasta, located in northern California near the Oregon border, rises
14,179 feet; Alaska’s Denali is a soaring 20,320 feet.

Also offered this year is a trip to central Mexico to ascend Pico de
Orizaba (18,850 feet) and Ixtaccíhuatl (17,343 feet), known together as the "Volcanoes of Mexico." Additional Climb to Fight Breast Cancer peaks are:

Mount Adams in Washington (12,276 feet)
Mount Baker in Washington (10,781 feet)
Mount Elbrus in Russia (18,510 feet)
Mount Hood in Oregon (11,237 feet)
Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (19,340 feet)
Mount Rainier in Washington (14,411 feet)

The "Volcanoes" climb will take place in October; the rest of the expeditions are scheduled for the spring and summer months.

Professional guides from Alpine Ascents International will lead expeditions to Denali, the Mexican volcanoes, Mount Elbrus, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Rainier and Mount Baker. Shasta Mountain Guides leads the trek up Mount Shasta, and guides from Portland Parks & Recreation will lead teams up Mount Adams and Mount Hood. A full schedule of peaks, climb dates and routes can be found at www.fhcrc.org/climb.

Each climb will have a limited number of team members generally nine or 10 as established by the guide services. Each participant commits to a fundraising minimum of $3,000 to $12,500, depending on the mountain.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer and the second most common cause of cancer death among women in the United States. Scientists at the Hutchinson Center study many aspects of the disease, including preventive measures, risk factors and early detection. Details can be found at http://www.fhcrc.org/research/diseases/breast_cancer/.

For more information or to register for the Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, visit www.fhcrc.org/climb or e-mail cfbc@fhcrc.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Christi Ball Loso
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5215
closo@fhcrc.org

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Racial disparities persist in the diagnosis of advanced breast cancer and colon cancer in the United States

February 08, 2010

SEATTLE Feb. 8, 2010 The incidence of advanced breast cancer diagnosis among black women remained 30 percent to 90 percent higher compared to white women between 1992 and 2004, according to new findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In addition, the disparity in the incidence of advance colorectal cancer actually widened over this time period as rates fell among whites but increased slightly among blacks.

The findings are published online in the inaugural issue of Springer's journal Hormones and Cancer, a publication of the Endocrine Society.

"While we could not determine the exact contributors to the trends we saw in this study, it is interesting to note that for breast cancer, mammographic screening rates were quite similar among African American and white women in the United States during the time period we studied. This suggests that factors other than screening may be contributing to this persistent disparity, including differences in both lifestyle and genetics," said senior author Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., an associate member of the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

A potential explanation for this disparity, he said, is that overall, black women have more-aggressive tumors that are more difficult to detect and treat as compared to non-Hispanic white women. Specifically, they have higher rates of hormone-receptor-negative breast cancers. Such tumors, while relatively rare, grow quickly and therefore often are not detected during screening mammograms. These tumors also are more resistant to therapy because they don’t respond to estrogen-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen.

The study included data on 7,237 women with newly diagnosed distant-stage breast cancer. Of these women, 1,364 were black and 5,873 were white. Overall, rates of advanced breast cancer remained essentially constant among women of both races throughout the study period, affecting about 18 out of 100,000 black women and 12 out of 100,000 white women.

The study also looked at rates of advanced-stage colorectal and prostate cancer in an attempt to deduce how screening practices may have impacted the magnitude of racial disparities in these malignancies during this 12-year period, an era of increased use of breast, colorectal and prostate cancer screening in the U.S.

For colorectal cancer, the researchers saw a widening of the racial disparity gap. Distant-stage incidence rates among non-Hispanic whites declined over time but increased somewhat among blacks. "It is possible that differing rates of colorectal endoscopy screening between African American and non-Hispanic whites could contribute to this widening disparity," said lead author Jean McDougall, M.P.H., a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

The study looked at data from 8,920 people diagnosed with distant-stage colorectal cancer. Of these, 1,669 were black and 7,251 were white. The black colorectal cancer patients were slightly younger at diagnosis and were more likely to be female as compared to whites. The relative risk of advanced colorectal cancer was significantly elevated in blacks throughout the study period. In 1992, blacks were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage colorectal cancer as compared to whites, and by 2004 that likelihood had doubled.

However, for prostate cancer, the disparity gap narrowed somewhat over time, as advanced-stage prostate cancer incidence rates declined for both black and non-Hispanic whites. The study included data from 2,801 men with late-stage cancer, 791 black and 2,010 white. The incidence of distant-stage prostate cancer among black men fell from 50 cases in 100,000 at the start of the study to 19.8 cases in 100,000 at the end of the data collection process. This level was still three times higher than that of white men, but it was a significant decline nonetheless.

"During this time period it became increasingly apparent that prostate cancer was an important public health problem in the African American community and there was a lot of effort to address this issue by raising awareness of screening," Li said. "I think that maybe we’re seeing some of the benefits of that work here."

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 12 population-based urban cancer registries throughout the continental U.S. and Hawaii, representing about 14 percent of the population. They focused on distant-stage cancers for which screening tests were widely available.

Data included female breast cancer cases between ages 40 and 64, male prostate cancer cases between ages 50 and 64, and male and female colorectal cancer cases between ages 50 and 64. The age ranges were chosen to reflect American Cancer Society screening guidelines and Medicare eligibility.

The study did not evaluate late-stage cancer rates among Asians/Pacific Islanders, American Indians/Alaska Natives or those of Hispanic ethnicity because of insufficient numbers of cases within each racial/ethnic group to conduct a statistically significant analysis of cancer trends over time.

Because the analysis was based on population-based data on incidence rates of advanced cancer but not on individual data that would reflect tumor biology or screening practices, the authors caution that the findings cannot predict individual risk but should be interpreted as a broad view of cancer trends over time.

"Epidemiologic studies such as this one are an important first step in understanding trends in disease rates on a population level," McDougall said. "However, we cannot draw strong conclusions regarding the factors contributing to the trends observed from this study, as its goal was to describe trends over time without using detailed data on individual cases and the complex factors that contribute to disease."

The authors concluded that blacks continue to have a disproportionately high cancer burden, and therefore "continued multipronged efforts aimed at improving access to breast, colorectal and prostate cancer prevention, screening, diagnostics and treatment services are warranted."

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center funded the study.

Note for media only: To arrange an interview or obtain a copy of the Hormones and Cancer paper, "Trends in Distant-Stage Breast, Colorectal, and Prostate Cancer Incidence Rates from 1992 to 2004: Potential Influences of Screening and Hormonal Factors," please contact Kristen Woodward, 206-667-5095 or kwoodwar@fhcrc.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

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Study details first successful use of expanded umbilical-cord blood units to treat leukemia

January 18, 2010

SEATTLE Jan. 18, 2010 Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have cleared a major technical hurdle to making umbilical-cord-blood transplants a more widely-used method for treating leukemia and other blood cancers.

In a study published in the Jan. 17, 2010 edition of Nature Medicine, Colleen Delaney, M.D., and colleagues describe the first use of a method to vastly expand the number of stem/progenitor cells from a unit of cord blood in the laboratory that were then infused into patients resulting in successful and rapid engraftment.

The relatively small number of stem cells in cord blood units (about one-10th the number a patient receives from a conventional transplant) has been a reason that cord blood transplants take much longer to engraft than standard stem cell transplants from donors. The longer the engraftment takes, the higher the risk is that immunocompromised patients will acquire life-threatening infections because they have essentially no white blood cells to fight them.

Despite the numbers disadvantage, cord blood is a promising source of stem cells to replace diseased blood and immune systems in stem cell transplantation because the donated cells don’t need to be perfectly matched to the patient. The lack of a suitable match is why about 30 percent of patients overall who need a stem cell transplant to treat cancers such as leukemia can’t find suitable donors. Among racial-minority patients the number who cannot find suitable donors is about 95 percent.

The use of expanded cord blood cells could decrease the risk of early death, which is higher in patients receiving a cord-blood transplant without expanded cells. Further clinical trials and technological improvements are needed to verify the efficacy of cord blood transplants that use expanded cells, the authors said.

"The real ground-breaking aspect of this research is that we have shown that you can manipulate stem/progenitor cells in the lab with the goal of increasing their numbers. When given to a person, these cells can rapidly give rise to white blood cells and other components of the blood system," said Delaney, an assistant member in the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division and an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

The stem cell expansion was possible by activating the Notch signaling pathway in the stem cells. This approach was developed by Irwin Bernstein, M.D., a member of the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division, and was initially published in Nature Medicine in 2000. A decade of work ensued resulting in successful translation of the laboratory findings to patients in a clinical setting.

Delaney and colleagues built upon Bernstein’s earlier work by engineering a protein that can be used in the lab to activate the Notch signaling pathway in stem cells and manipulate the cells in tissue culture to expand in quantity.

This successful laboratory method for expanding the number of stem/progenitor cells from a single unit of cord blood resulted in an average 164-fold increase in the number of CD34+ cells, a type of hematopoietic stem cell. Such cells are multipotent and give rise to all types of blood cells.

Delaney said that a typical unit of cord blood usually contains less than 200,000 stem cells per kilogram of body weight of the recipient patient. In contrast, the expanded units contained on average 6 million CD34+ cells per kilogram of body weight, which is on par with conventional transplant sources.

The current study also describes the outcomes of 10 patients in an ongoing phase 1 clinical trial who received two units of cord blood to treat high-risk, acute leukemia. Each patient received one unit of non-manipulated cord blood and one in which the cells were expanded in the lab. Researchers evaluated the safety of infusing the expanded cells as well as how long it took to reconstitute the blood system, how durable the transplants were and which cord blood unit contributed the most to engraftment. The age range of the patients was 3 to 43.

The results to date show that on average it took 14 days for the transplanted cells to engraft, versus an average of four weeks when non-expanded units of cord blood were used. Seven of the 10 patients are still alive with no evidence of disease and with sustained, complete donor engraftment. Tests revealed that the recovery of white blood cells early post transplant were derived predominantly from the expanded cord blood unit.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation funded the study.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

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M. Elizabeth Halloran named AAAS Fellow

December 17, 2009

SEATTLE Dec. 17, 2009 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientist M. Elizabeth "Betz" Halloran, M.D., M.P.H., D.S.c., has been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow. Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, by their peers.

Halloran is a researcher in the Hutchinson Center's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington. She is being honored, according to the AAAS, "for her integration of sophisticated mathematical modeling of infectious-disease dynamics with strong foundations in the design and analysis of field studies."

Halloran is among the world's leaders in the field of biomathematics and biostatistics to study the spread of infectious diseases. Her expertise is sought widely in the struggle against new and resurgent infectious diseases. During the last few years she and colleagues have consulted with federal and state officials and have been consulted by world health organizations to help develop intervention plans to control potential pandemics, such as avian and swine influenza.

Halloran's work focuses on statistics and study design to help predict the spread of disease and simulate intervention strategies to save lives. A book she co-authored, "Design and Analysis of Vaccine Studies" was published earlier this year by Springer. Halloran also is the founder of the new Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases offered by the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington, where she is a professor.

The Hutchinson Center's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute (VIDI) was formed in 2007. Its researchers aim to eliminate or reduce the mortality and morbidity of the major infectious diseases of humankind. In addition to vaccine development for HIV and other diseases, VIDI research focuses on a wide range of infectious pathogens, including herpes simplex viruses, cytomegalovirus, infectious fungi, and cancer-associated infections such as human herpesvirus-8, among others. Research areas concentrate on treatment and prevention of infectious diseases by studying immune responses to these pathogens and the course of infection.

Halloran is among 531 AAAS Fellows selected this year "for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications." New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, Feb. 20 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the organization’s annual meeting in San Diego.

Other AAAS Fellows from the Hutchinson Center include Nobel laureate Linda Buck, Ph.D., Hutchinson Center Deputy Director Mark T. Groudine, M.D., Ph.D., Maxine L. Linial, Ph.D., Paul Neiman, Ph.D., and Gerald Smith, Ph.D., all of the Center’s Basic Sciences Division; Denise Galloway, Ph.D., of the Center’s Human Biology Division; John Potter, M.D., Ph.D., former head of the Center’s Public Health Sciences Division; and Meng-Chao Yao, Ph.D., formerly of the Center's Basic Sciences Division.

The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. The organization was founded in 1848 and the tradition of electing AAAS Fellows began in 1874.

Note for media only: A digital photo of Halloran is available upon request.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

Molly McElroy, AAAS
202-326-6434
mmcelroy@aaas.org

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The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to advance science and serve society through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

Aggressive infection control program protects cancer patients from acquiring clinic-based H1N1 influenza

December 16, 2009

SEATTLE Dec. 16, 2009 Despite a 100-fold increase in H1N1 influenza cases in the Seattle area during spring 2009, an aggressive infection control program to protect immunocompromised cancer patients and thorough screening measures resulted in no corresponding increase in H1N1 cases among the total patient population at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, according to a new study by researchers and physicians at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the SCCA.

The findings appear in this week's online version of the journal Blood. In the paper, authors Corey Casper, M.D., Janet Englund, M.D. and Michael Boeckh, M.D., detail how patients with blood cancers are screened, diagnosed and treated for H1N1 infections and then how the SCCA's infection control program led to successful suppression of a potentially serious pandemic among clinic patients and staff.

"Our experience shows that aggressive infection control procedures can minimize transmission within the immunocompromised patient population and also reduce acquisition from sources outside the system," the authors concluded.

The SCCA's infection control program is unique in that it is devoted entirely to outpatient infection control among cancer patients, according to Casper, a researcher in the Hutchinson Center’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute and medical director of the SCCA's infection control program.

"Lessons learned here are important ones because the majority of cancer care is provided in an outpatient setting," Casper said. "Outpatient cancer care poses more challenges when it comes to protecting patient health because the environment is less controlled than that of a hospital."

The SCCA infection control program follows recommendations set forth by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cornerstone of the program, which begins Oct. 1 and runs through April 30 each year, is early identification of individuals with potential influenza infection. Each person who enters the SCCA outpatient clinic building is met with hand hygiene stations and information about respiratory infections and respiratory etiquette. Licensed practical nurses or volunteers administer an 11-point symptom survey to all who enter clinical areas. A sticker color coded for the day of the week documents the completion of the survey. No individual without a sticker is admitted to clinical areas and all employees are empowered to enforce the policy.

Patients who have respiratory symptoms have their appointments rescheduled; those who cannot be rescheduled are given masks and placed in either an isolation area or private room until they can be assessed by their clinical care team. Isolation lists are maintained electronically as part of each patient's medical record.

Staff members with any symptom of respiratory infection are furloughed until they are symptom free. Respiratory virus testing is offered to staff who have minimal residual symptoms but feel well enough to work after an absence of more than four days; a negative test allows them to return to work.

A comprehensive isolation plan was developed and widely distributed for outpatient and inpatient facilities (SCCA adult cancer patients receive inpatient care at the University of Washington Medical Center and SCCA pediatric inpatients are cared for at Seattle Children's). Adherence to hand hygiene and compliance with isolation guidelines are monitored regularly. An electronic surveillance system allows for real-time quantification of the numbers of patients and staff who are infected with influenza, which is reviewed daily by the infection control team.

The infection control program is rounded out with the requirement that staff receive annual influenza vaccinations (or sign a written declination waiver), a sick leave policy that is tolerant of absences for respiratory illnesses, redundant work plans for staff at all levels should absences be required, helping families and caregivers identify resources for furloughing caregivers and a plan for giving antiviral drugs to exposed patients and staff.

The authors urge that healthcare institutions caring for immunocompromised patients require that all of their staff receive influenza vaccination as key goal to control influenza.

While vaccination is a primary prevention tool, healthcare staff who have significant exposure to confirmed cases of influenza who have not been vaccinated or who received a vaccination less than three weeks prior to the time of exposure should be considered for preventive antiviral therapy, the authors said.

The National Institutes of Health funded the study.

Note for media only: To obtain a copy of the Blood paper "How We Treat Influenza in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies" by Casper and colleagues, contact Dean Forbes, 206-667-2896 or dforbes@fhcrc.org

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

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34th annual Hutch Holiday Gala raises $8.8 million for cancer research

December 06, 2009

SEATTLE Dec. 6, 2009 A challenge donation from the Bezos family at Saturday's Hutch Holiday Gala boosted the evening's fundraising total to $8.8 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

"Help the Hutch," a portion of the live auction during which guests raise their bid cards for specific contribution levels, brought in $7.9 million to be directed toward the Hutchinson Center's work to harness the human immune system to battle cancer.

The black-tie Gala took place Dec. 5 from 6 p.m. to midnight at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel. The Bezos family asked for unity to advance and broaden the Center's program in immunotherapy to fight solid-tumor cancers.

In November the family pledged $10 million to the Hutchinson Center to advance the promising field of immunotherapy research to treat and cure cancer, even in late stages. The family chose to structure the gift as a challenge in the hope that it will unite others in the community to join the cause. The three-year challenge period kicked off during Saturday's Gala and will extend through Dec. 31, 2012.

Through the years the Center has led the development of immunotherapy, via bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, to help patients win the battle against leukemia and other blood cancers. These advancements greatly enhanced researchers' understanding of the body’s ability to use antibodies, T cells and other immune-system components to fight disease. As a result of their successes, Center scientists believe they are uniquely poised to apply knowledge of the immune system to combat common cancers such as breast, prostate, colon, kidney, ovarian and skin cancer.

Recent discoveries in the Center's Clinical Research Division herald a new era in cancer treatment. An example is the work of Cassian Yee, M.D., who found that infusing patients with their own "helper" T cells could put advanced melanoma into remission. Yee and other Center researchers are now expanding clinical trials that use T-cell therapy to treat advanced tumors.

"We are fortunate that our guests know the power of private support in the fight against cancer," Yee said. "Proceeds from tonight's Gala challenge and auction will help us advance all we've done in the lab moving it into the clinic to help patients," he said.

Gala patrons also bid on exclusive auction packages including a trip to the Big Apple for the Tony Awards, $11,000.; a trip to French Polynesia to view a total solar eclipse, $14,000.; and an exclusive private tasting and dinner for 12 at Long Shadows and Corliss wineries in Walla Walla, $22,000.

The grand finale was the "Diamond Dash" a raffle for a 30 second shopping spree at Alvin Goldfarb Jeweler’s store in downtown Seattle. Sue Hansen held the winning ticket and, strapping on a new pair of Nike Flex running shoes donated for the occasion, ran for a pair of diamond-and-peridot drop earrings. "Diamond Dash" raffle ticket sales raised $30,600.

Presented by the Grace Heffernan Arnold Guild and the Hutch Holiday Gala Board of Directors, the Hutch Holiday Gala featured live and silent auctions, an elegant dinner and entertainment with 700 in attendance. Through the years the Gala has raised more than $62 million in support of key research initiatives and patient programs at the Hutchinson Center.

To learn more, visit the Hutch Holiday Gala Web page at www.fhcrc.org/gala and the Hutchinson Center Web site at www.fhcrc.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Christi Ball Loso
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5215
closo@fhcrc.org

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Hutchinson Center wins $55.4 million contract to become sole operator of the NCI Cancer Information Service

December 04, 2009

SEATTLE Dec. 4, 2009 The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $55.4 million, multiple-year contract to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to become the nation's sole operator of its Cancer Information Service Contact Center.

The move will create 60 new jobs at the Hutchinson Center nearly tripling the size of its current CIS workforce once the consolidated center is fully operational, which is scheduled for March 15, 2010. The Seattle CIS center will remain in its existing location on the Hutchinson Center campus.

The CIS is a free public telephone and Internet-based resource for personalized information about cancer prevention, screening and treatment. The Hutchinson Center has operated a CIS contact center since 1981.

Over the years, the number of CIS contact centers has dwindled from 26 to three. In addition to Seattle, centers currently operate at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Miami and New York centers will cease operations March 15.

The consolidation will allow operating hours to expand significantly, from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time weekdays for phone calls (previously 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) and from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific Time weekdays for the popular "live help" chat service via the Internet (previously 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.).

New to the Seattle office will be the ability to provide bilingual service to callers in Spanish. Three oncology-certified nurses will be among the new hires to train information specialists and act as mentors to supervisors.

"We love the service we provide to the public and we're happy to have the opportunity to continue to provide this service on a broader scale," said Nancy Zbaren, project director.

The NCI, the nation’s lead agency for cancer research, established the CIS in 1975 to educate people about cancer prevention, risk factors, early detection, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and research. The CIS is an essential part of NCI’s cancer prevention and control efforts.

"We are the voice of the National Cancer Institute," said Dawn Sittauer, Seattle CIS contact center manager.

The CIS currently handles up to about 470 inquiries per day, including a growing amount of "live help" inquiries and e-mails. Calls come from throughout the United States and its territories but about 12 percent of the chat and e-mail inquiries come from outside the country, according to Sittauer.

"When the public calls with any question or concerns, we are able to provide evidence-based information," Zbaren said. "We answer questions about cancer from patients, family members, physicians and the general public seeking clinical trials, treatment options, any question you an imagine. Our job is to provide information, not advice, in a compassionate and tailored manner."

The CIS can be accessed by a toll-free number, 1-800-4-CANCER (800-422-6237), for telephone inquiries and through the Internet at the NCI’s Web site (http://www.cancer.gov/help) to contact the service via e-mail or through LiveHelp (chat service).

Note for media only: A photo of CIS project director Nancy Zbaren and manager Dawn Sittauer in the Seattle CIS contact center is available upon request.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

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Cholesterol-lowering drugs also may protect stem cell transplant patients from a potentially deadly complication

December 04, 2009

SEATTLE Dec. 4, 2009 Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins are among the most prescribed medicines in the U.S. Now a new study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center indicates that statins may protect stem cell transplant patients from one of the most serious complications of the life-saving cancer therapy: graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD. The findings are reported in the Dec. 4 edition of Blood.

In a retrospective study of 567 patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation from matched sibling donors between 2001 and 2007, patients whose donors had been taking statins at the time of stem cell donation experienced no severe acute GVHD. About 15 percent of the stem cell donors in the study were taking statins at the time of transplant.

Normally, between 10 percent and 15 percent of transplant patients would be expected to develop severe acute GVHD, according to the study’s senior author Marco Mielcarek, M.D., an assistant member of the Hutchinson Center’s Clinical Research Division.

No such protection from severe acute GVHD was observed if only the patient was taking a statin, according to the study. There was some indication that protection against severe GVHD was even stronger when both patient and donor had been on statin medications, however the number of patients in this group was too small to be statistically significant.

The researchers also found that only those transplant patients with statin-treated donors who received cyclosporine-based immunosuppression therapy after transplantation were protected from severe GVHD. Patients with statin-treated donors who received a similar drug, tacrolimus, did not experience the same GVHD-protection. The study also found that the greatest statin protection occurred against severe GVHD of the gastrointestinal tract.

GVHD is a common side effect in patients who receive blood stem cell transplants from related or unrelated donors. It occurs when the transplanted cells recognize the recipient’s tissues as foreign and attack the tissues. This can cause a variety of problems, including skin rashes, diarrhea and liver inflammation. Acute GVHD often occurs in the first three months after a transplant and can lead to mortality as high as 50 percent if it is severe. It can be deadly because patients require more immunosuppressive drugs to treat it, which can trigger a cascade of complications such as secondary infections.

Mielcarek, first author Marcello Rotta, M.D., a postdoctoral research fellow in the Hutchinson Center’s Clinical Research Division, and colleagues undertook the study because previous research showed that statins have anti-inflammatory effects and have been found to improve control of other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Recently, studies using mouse models of stem cell transplantation have shown protection against lethal acute GVHD when the donors and recipients had been treated with statins before transplant.

The exact mechanism of how statins protect against GVHD is not known.
In the literature, a multitude of possible mechanisms are discussed by which statins may influence immune function, Mielcarek said. One is cell adhesion the stickiness of cells that influences how donor T cells that cause GVHD can migrate to certain target tissues. Another is how statins interfere with intracellular signaling in T cells. Statins may dampen the activity of allo-reactive T cells and prevent them from initiating the inflammatory cascade that’s required to cause GVHD.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health and The Dana Foundation funded this research.

Note for media only: To obtain a copy of the Blood paper, Donor Statin Treatment Protects Against Severe Acute Graft-Versus-Host Disease After Related Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, please contact Dean Forbes at 206-667-2896 or dforbes@fhcrc.org

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

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Mark Teahen named 2009 Hutch Award winner

November 30, 2009

SEATTLE Nov. 30, 2009 Major League Baseball's Mark Teahen, longtime third baseman for the Kansas City Royals and recently acquired by the Chicago White Sox, will receive the 2009 Hutch Award®. The award is given annually to a Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies the honor, courage and dedication of baseball great Fred Hutchinson, both on and off the field.

The 28-year-old Redlands, Calif., native made his MLB debut with the Royals in April 2005, playing third and first bases and the outfield. He had been a unanimous first-team, All-West Coast Conference selection in 2002. Teahen, whose father is from Ontario, has dual Canadian-American citizenship and last March played on the Canadian men’s national team in the World Baseball Classic. On Nov. 5 he was traded to the White Sox.

"I am extremely excited to accept the Hutch Award, and I am humbled to be added to the prestigious list of former recipients," Teahen said. "I am honored and am thankful for all of my friends and family who help me accomplish the many successes I've been fortunate to achieve."

Teahen said the Hutch Award and its connection with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center mean even more to him because this year he witnessed his mother’s successful battle with breast cancer.

Off the field, Teahen has been active in the local community. For nearly the entirety of his tenure with the Royals, Teahen served as a key spokesman and fundraiser for the YMCA Challenger Baseball program, a division of Little League Baseball that gives children with physical or mental challenges the opportunity to play on specially designed baseball fields. In addition, he has donated time to the Royals AbilityCAMP, an interactive baseball camp for kids with disabilities, and he has supported other causes and foundations focusing on the well-being of children.

Teahen will visit children at the Hutchinson Center's Hutch School and receive his award at the annual Hutch Award Luncheon on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 at Safeco Field in Seattle. Legendary pitcher and 1989 Hutch Award winner Dave Dravecky will be the featured speaker at the luncheon, which raises funds for cancer research.

The Hutchinson Center was founded by Fred's brother Bill, a prominent Seattle surgeon, after Fred died of cancer at age 45. The Hutch Award was established in 1965 and was first given to Mickey Mantle. Other Hutch Award winners have included 2008 recipient Jon Lester, Mike Sweeney, Mark Loretta, Craig Biggio, Jamie Moyer, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, Omar Vizquel, Sandy Koufax and Carl Yastrzemski. In all, 11 Hall-of-Famers have received the Hutch Award. For more information about the Hutch Award, including a full list of past recipients, visit www.fhcrc.org/hutchaward.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Christi Ball Loso
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5215
closo@fhcrc.org

###

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center receives a pledge of $10 million to bolster immunotherapy research

November 23, 2009

SEATTLE Nov. 23, 2009 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has received a pledge of $10 million to advance the promising field of immunotherapy research to treat and cure cancer, even in late stages.

The donors, the Bezos family, are optimistic that their investment in immunotherapy a direct outgrowth of the Hutchinson Center's Nobel Prize-winning work on bone marrow transplantation will help change the face of cancer treatment.

"Our commitment to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is an educated bet on the next forefront in medical science and those who we feel are best positioned to capitalize on it," Jackie Bezos said.

The family's gift will help catalyze the Hutchinson Center's Program in Immunotherapy, a $28.5 million endeavor which, Center researchers believe, may open the door to the final stage in the war on cancer.

"We have been seeking significant private support to solidify the Hutchinson Center's position as the world leader in immunotherapy research. The Bezos family has stepped up to that challenge," said Lee Hartwell, Ph.D., Nobel laureate and president and director of the Hutchinson Center. "Thanks to the generosity of the Bezos family, we will be able to recruit and retain top immunotherapy researchers, create resources for the development of new immunological drugs and strengthen our clinical trials program to make these novel therapies more widely available to patients," he said.

During the next five years, the Hutchinson Center's goal is to advance and broaden the field of immunotherapy so that it has the same impact on solid-tumor cancers that bone-marrow transplantation - the first example of the power of the human immune system to cure cancer - has had on leukemia, boosting survival rates from nearly zero to upwards of 85 percent for certain forms of the disease.

The Bezos family chose to structure the gift as a challenge in the hope that it will unite others in the community to join the cause.

"We're very hopeful, yet mindful that undertakings of this nature are risky," Jackie said. "There will, inevitably, be setbacks. This is why we are structuring the grant as a challenge, to help the Hutchinson Center secure, for the long term, a diverse group of supporters and to rally a community around science that has the potential to benefit us all."

The gift is the family's largest private donation to support biomedical research.

"We chose to support the Hutchinson Center because it is a world leader in immunotherapy, which wields the power of the immune system to reprogram the body's army of infection-fighting T cells to be laser focused on fighting a particular illness. The first target and it's a big one is cancer. But the potential for using immunotherapy to treat other diseases, including those of the autoimmune system, are tremendous," Jackie said.

Already Hutchinson Center scientists have demonstrated the potential of immunotherapy to save lives. In June 2008 a research team led by Cassian Yee, M.D., of the Center's Clinical Research Division described the first successful use of a human patient's cloned infection-fighting T cells as the sole therapy to put advanced melanoma tumors into long-term remission. Yee and colleagues are now expanding clinical trials that use T-cell therapy to treat advanced tumors.

Because of the considerable resources required to develop these novel therapies and study them in humans for the first time, the Hutchinson Center's work so far has been limited to small pilot studies in a limited number of cancers.

"Our extraordinary success, coupled with new knowledge about how to improve and extend these results, has brought us to the threshold of a new era in the battle against cancer," said Fred Appelbaum, M.D., senior vice president and director of the Center's Clinical Research Division. "Now is the time to unleash the full potential of the immune-based approaches we have been so instrumental in discovering and developing, and the Bezos family gift will be instrumental in helping us realize this vision."

For more information about the Hutchinson Center's research focus in immunotherapy, please visit:

www.fhcrc.org/immunotherapy
or see the immunotherapy backgrounder (PDF)

For more information on how to support immunotherapy research at the Hutchinson Center, please visit:

http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/donateimmunotherapy

Note for media only: Broadcast-quality B-roll and sound bites of Cassian Yee, M.D., discussing the promise of immunotherapy research and the impact of the Bezos family gift are available upon request. The footage includes laboratory activity and exteriors of the Hutchinson Center campus. To obtain a copy (Beta SP), please contact Kristen Woodward in Hutchinson Center media relations, 206-667-5095 or kwoodwar@fhcrc.org.

# # #

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit fhcrc.org.

MEDIA CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
206-667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

First report of using radiolabeled antibodies and stem cell transplantation to successfully treat advanced leukemia

November 05, 2009

SEATTLE Nov. 5, 2009 For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have reported the use of a radiolabeled antibody to deliver targeted doses of radiation, followed by a stem cell transplant, to successfully treat a group of leukemia and pre-leukemia patients for whom there previously had been no other curative treatment options.

All fifty-eight patients, with a median age of 63 and all with advanced acute myeloid leukemia or high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome - a pre-leukemic condition - saw their blood cancers go into remission using a novel combination of low-intensity chemotherapy, targeted radiation delivery by an antibody and a stem-cell transplant. Forty percent of the patients were alive a year after treatment and approximately 35 percent had survived three years, about the same rates as patients who received similar treatment but whose disease was already in remission and who had much more favorable risk for relapse when therapy began.

Results of the research appear online in the journal Blood. The principal investigator and corresponding author of the paper is John Pagel, M.D., Ph.D, a transplant oncologist and assistant member of the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division.

The purpose of the study was to find the maximum dose of radiation that patients could tolerate with acceptable toxic side effects, not to assess how effective the novel treatment was, according to Pagel and colleagues. However, "the results appear to be very encouraging and warrant us to study it further for patients who really have no significant other curative options," Pagel said.

Older (over age 50) patients with active, advanced leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome pose the most difficult treatment challenges because standard transplant therapy rarely works, according to Pagel. Both standard and low-dose therapies (a process sometimes known as a "mini transplant" and pioneered at the Hutchinson Center) used to kill leukemia cells in the bloodstream in preparation for a transplant usually require that patients be in remission.

The patients in this study, who came from all over the world to participate in the Phase 1 clinical trial, were in large part those with active relapsed disease that in many cases had failed to respond to standard therapies. Eighty-six percent of the 58 patients had active disease and only 10 percent were in remission when therapy was begun. Their cancers had failed previous treatment attempts. "These were people who had extremely advanced high-risk disease, they were typically older - most of them were in their 60s and some were in their 70s - and had few or no other options for a potential cure. In fact most, if not all, would not been offered a stem cell transplant here or elsewhere. It is fair to say that these patients would likely have died without a transplant being performed if they had not been given the opportunity to participate in this study."

To find the optimal dose of radiation, researchers began at 12 Gy (Gray, a unit of measurement of absorbed radiation dose) and escalated the dosages in increments of 2 Gy up to a Gy of 26. At that dose, some toxicity to the heart and lungs was found so they concluded 24 Gy to be the maximum effective dosage. The 21 patients who received the maximum radiation dose have survived the longest, researchers reported.

The key to success in this study was use of a radiolabeled antibody that has therapeutic iodine 131 attached and is designed to target leukemic bloods cells that carry a marker on the surface of the cell known as CD45. Its use in delivering targeted amounts of radiation was developed several years ago at the Hutchinson Center. Delivered intravenously, the radiation looks for the CD45 antigen receptor on the surface of blood cells. This approach results in a two- to four-fold increase in the amount of radiation that reaches cancerous cells as compared to standard external beam radiation, which also radiates normal surrounding organs and tissue. The more radiation that can be applied, the more cancer cells will be killed in preparation for donor stem cells to take over the diseased immune system and kill off the remaining cancer cells.

Pagel said further research is needed to test more patients at the highest radiation dose both at the Hutchinson Center and at other transplant centers around the country.

Joining Pagel in the study were colleagues from the Hutchinson Center, the Pacific Northwest Laboratory and the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics and Nuclear Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Edson Foundation and the Frederick Kullman Memorial Fund supported this research.

# # #

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit fhcrc.org.

CONTACT
Dean Forbes
206-667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

Hutchinson Center researcher secures $7.9 million NCI grant for esophageal cancer research

October 30, 2009

SEATTLE Oct. 30, 2009 Thomas Vaughan, M.D., head of the Epidemiology Program in the Public Health Sciences Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has received a three-year, $7.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study genetic susceptibility for Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma, a rapidly fatal cancer whose incidence has increased more than 500 percent in the past 30 years, faster than any other cancer in the United States.

Vaughan and David Whiteman, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, will execute a large-scale genome-wide association study using pooled data and DNA from 18 epidemiological studies of more than 7,000 individuals making up the Barrett’s and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Consortium to determine how genetic factors interplay with key environmental and personal risk factors for these conditions, including obesity, heartburn and smoking.

"The results will aid us in identifying the biological pathways that contribute to this cancer," Vaughan said. "The information also will help direct our screening, prevention and surveillance efforts to those at highest risk."

The Hutchinson Center's Genomics Resource will do the genotyping for the study, their largest project to date. Bruce Weir, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health will lead the statistical analysis team.

Genome-wide association studies involve a scan of hundreds of thousands of genetic markers across the genome in large numbers of individuals to find genetic variations associated with a particular disease. Early genome-wide scans have demonstrated considerable success in identifying genetic variants associated with common diseases.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

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Cancer treatment guidelines for diverse Asian economies use model developed at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

October 30, 2009

SEATTLE Oct. 30, 2009 When the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet Oncology this week published six cancer treatment guideline papers aimed at the resource-diverse nations of Asia, it used as its model the economic template developed by the Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI) based at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. It was an important affirmation that the BHGI’s unique resource-stratification approach to cancer treatment guidelines for low- and moderate-income countries is a viable model.

"Asia represents a tremendous clinical challenge: Cancer incidence is increasing rapidly; lifestyles are becoming more westernized causing changes in disease etiology; and resources for infrastructure and disease management vary widely from country to country," The Lancet Oncology editors said in their introduction to the papers. "For any clinical guidance to be universally applicable these differences need to be taken into account. The Breast Health Global Initiative provides an excellent economic template on how to achieve this goal."

Founded in 2002, the BHGI strives to develop evidence-based, economically feasible and culturally appropriate guidelines for underdeveloped nations to improve breast-health outcomes. BHGI is co-sponsored by the Hutchinson Center and the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Benjamin O. Anderson, M.D., is founder, chair and director. He is a member of the Division of Public Health Sciences at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, director of the Breast Health Clinic at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and professor of surgery and global health medicine at the University of Washington.

"The BHGI guidelines are intended to assist ministers of health, policymakers, administrators and institutions in prioritizing resource allocation as breast cancer treatment programs are implemented and developed in their resource-constrained countries," Anderson said. "The guidelines are defined by levels of resources and offer evidence-based pathways for coordinated, step-by-step quality improvements. This systematic approach applies a tiered system of resource allotment: basic, limited, enhanced and maximal, and is based on the contribution of each resource toward improving clinical outcomes."

The papers published by The Lancet Oncology in its November 2009 issue cover management of a variety of malignancies: HER-2 positive breast cancer, neck cancer, T-cell and natural-killer-cell neoplasms, advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, liver cancer and endometrial cancer. The guidelines represent consensus statements from the 2009 Asian Oncology Summit held last April in Singapore. The journal co-hosted the event.

"I was tremendously impressed and pleased with how this worked and how the different key opinion leaders were brought together in the Asian Oncology Summit," Anderson said. "It was a great learning experience for me in addition to the fact that it was a demonstration that this stratified guideline approach is in fact useful and functional."

The first broad dissemination of the BHGI guidelines came in October 2008 when journal Cancer published a special supplement, "Guidelines for International Breast Health and Cancer Control," which detailed guidelines for low- and middle-income countries to implement programs to detect and treat breast cancer, the most common disease among women worldwide.

More information about The Lancet Oncology cancer papers can be found on its Web site here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(09)70324-9/fulltext

More information about the BHGI can be found on its Web site: www.bhgi.info

MEDIA CONTACT:
Dean Forbes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-2896
dforbes@fhcrc.org

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$4.8 million federal stimulus grant launches feasibility study of massive endeavor to measure all human proteins

October 27, 2009

SEATTLE Oct. 27, 2009 An expert in cancer proteomics at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has received $4.8 million in federal stimulus funding from the National Cancer Institute to co-lead a pilot study to assess the feasibility and scalability of a project that aims to measure all of the proteins in the human body.

"If successful, this study could help to stimulate a larger international endeavor that would be comparable to the Human Genome Project," said Amanda Paulovich, M.D., Ph.D., a geneticist and oncologist in the Hutchinson Center's Clinical Research Division who is co-leading the effort with Steven Carr, Ph.D., a senior scientific leader in protein biochemistry and proteomics at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. A senior adviser on the project is N. Leigh Anderson, Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer of the Plasma Proteome Institute in Washington, D.C.

"In the same way that the Human Genome Project has had a tremendous impact on our ability to measure the expression levels of all 21,000 genes in human cells, we hope that the long-term output of this effort the human Proteome Detection and Quantitation (hPDQ) project will allow us to build a method to measure the products of those genes, which are the more than 100,000 proteins in the human body," Paulovich said.

Understanding the body's protein landscape is important because proteins are the workhorses of the cell that carry out genetic instructions. Changes in the structure or abundance of proteins are associated with genetic mutations that cause diseases such as cancer.

Currently there is no good way to simultaneously measure large numbers of human proteins, which presents a major obstacle to progress in both basic and applied translational research, in which fundamental scientific findings are translated into clinically useful results, from diagnostic and screening tests to drug development.

"You can't study what you can't measure," Paulovich said. "Currently the biomedical research enterprise is severely hindered by its inability to measure the vast majority of human proteins." Unlike gene signals, which can be amplified in the laboratory, protein volume cannot be dialed up.

Because many proteins are present in very low quantities like a needle in a haystack they are below the limits of detection with current techniques.
This study is designed to change that. "This pilot has the potential of developing the first step toward making the entire human proteome clinically accessible," said Henry Rodriguez, Ph.D., director of Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer in the Office of the Director at the NCI.

"If we can create ways to measure a large fraction of human proteins, particularly those in very low abundance, this will facilitate the development of new drugs and personalized medicine," Paulovich said.

Ultimately, the "holy grail" of proteomics is the discovery of protein biomarkers that could be used to create reliable and inexpensive blood tests to identify the onset and risk of a wide range of cancers and other diseases so they could be prevented or treated at the earliest possible stage, when cure rates are highest.

For the project, Paulovich and colleagues will use a highly sensitive and targeted analytical technology multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry to develop 400 assays, or tests, to measure the levels of 200 proteins found in breast-cancer cells. While the purpose of the study is to test the feasibility of scaling this technology to a much broader scale, a side benefit may be to determine whether certain proteins are associated with specific subtypes of breast cancer.

This type of mass spectrometry is not new it has been used for years in clinical laboratories worldwide to measure drug metabolites and small molecules associated with inborn errors of metabolism. What is new is Paulovich and colleagues’ pioneering use of this technology, also known as triple quadropole mass spectrometry, to measure proteins.

Unlike traditional mass spectrometry, which attempts to detect all proteins in a biological sample in a scattershot fashion, this technology is highly targeted, allowing researchers to calibrate the equipment to specifically look for peptides, or protein fragments, of interest, filtering out the rest as white noise.

The approach used in the Hutchinson Center/Broad Institute collaboration is complementary to other ongoing protein-discovery initiatives such as the Human Proteome Project of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) and the Swedish Human Proteome Resource. "While these other groups are identifying proteins expressed in different human cell types, we will complement their work by quantifying the expression of proteins beginning with those of potential clinical interest," Paulovich said. "We'll measure these proteins to see if their abundance changes in relation to disease."

The project also includes collaborators at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as a commercial partnership with Applied Biosystems of Life Technologies, whose AB Sciex triple quadrupole mass-spectrometry equipment will be used for the project.

To maximize productivity, Paulovich and colleagues also will closely coordinate activities and share their results with Robert Moritz, Ph.D., a faculty member and director of proteomics at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, who recently received federal stimulus funding to lead a related human proteome project.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

###

A solution to Darwin's 'mystery of mysteries' emerges from the dark matter of the genome

October 26, 2009

SEATTLE Oct. 26, 2009 Biological species are often defined on the basis of reproductive isolation. Ever since Darwin pointed out his difficulty in explaining why crosses between two species often yield sterile or inviable progeny (for instance, mules emerging from a cross between a horse and a donkey), biologists have struggled with this question. New research into this field by basic scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published online Oct. 22 in Science Express, suggests that the solution to this problem lies within the "dark matter of the genome": heterochromatin, a tightly packed, gene-poor compartment of DNA found within the genomes of all nucleated cells.

"Speciation is one of the most fascinating, unsolved problems in biology," said Harmit Malik, Ph.D., an associate member of the Hutchinson Center's Basic Sciences Division and corresponding author of the paper.

Malik and first author Joshua Bayes, Ph.D., a former graduate student in the Malik lab, focused on understanding the cellular function of a particular fruit fly (Drosophila) gene dubbed Odysseus. The gene is so named because of its ability to cause havoc and male sterility when introduced into the genome of another species. Odysseus is a gene that is derived from a transcription factor, and it was long believed to be a protein that turned on expression of other genes in Drosophila testis.

Odysseus also had been previously shown to rapidly evolve in its DNA-binding domain. Based on this observation, Bayes and Malik reasoned that Odysseus must interact with some rapidly evolving DNA in the genome. They tested the hypothesis, first proposed by Malik and Hutchinson Center colleague Steven Henikoff, Ph.D., that such hybrid-sterility proteins may bind repetitive satellite DNA in heterochromatin. Such repeats are believed to evolve rapidly due to an "arms-race" for preferential transmission during the process of forming an egg, whereby only one of four chromosomes is non-randomly chosen to be included into the egg.

Consistent with this hypothesis, Bayes found that Odysseus proteins localize to heterochromatic DNA found next to centromeres and on gene-poor chromosomes, which leads to their decondensation. Dramatically, the hybrid-sterility-associated Odysseus from one species showed additional localization to the Y chromosome of the other species. Through experiments in cell lines and transgenic flies, Bayes further showed that Odysseus localization has rapidly evolved during recent evolution, evidence of the "arms-race" that drives rapid evolution of satellite DNA repeats. Altered expression and localization has profoundly deleterious consequences for the process of sperm formation, a process that remains a mystery and is under active study in the Malik lab.

The finding that rapidly evolving heterochromatin may underlie this phenomenon also ties in with other work in Malik's lab that explores how "mismatches" originating from rapid evolution of DNA and proteins could lead to chromosome segregation defects and aneuploidy events that are sometimes precursors in transitions to cancer.

Malik and Bayes have received recent honors for their work. Earlier this year Malik, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist, was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for his unique combination of evolutionary and genetic approaches to tackle important problems like speciation and infectious disease. For his work describing the first-ever molecular explanation of a hybrid-sterility gene, Bayes earlier this year was awarded the prestigious Walter M. Fitch Prize. Bayes is now an HHMI postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Mathers Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded this research.

MEDIA CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

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Hutchinson Center to build first U.S. cancer clinic and training facility in Africa thanks, in part, to a grant from USAID

October 23, 2009

Nurse Janet Nankoma Kwiri of the Uganda Cancer Institute tends to patient Ojambo Samwiri of Nyenga-Mukono, Uganda. (Photo by Rob Gipman, Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases)

Check out the gallery of downloadable photos from the Uganda Cancer Institute »

SEATTLE Oct. 26, 2009 Building on the strengths of two institutions separated by nearly 9,000 miles over two continents both renowned in their work in the fight against cancer the United States Agency for International Development has awarded a $500,000 grant to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to aid in the construction of the first American cancer clinic and medical-training facility in Africa.

This is the first true collaboration between an African and a U.S. institution to attempt to reduce cancer-related suffering through collaborative medical care and training, said Hutchinson Center physician-scientist Corey Casper, M.D., M.P.H., scientific co-director of the Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases, a research effort begun in 2004 between the Hutchinson Center and the Uganda Cancer Institute, the country’s sole cancer clinic. The institute is located at Makerere University Medical School on the campus of Mulago Hospital in Kampala, the nation’s capital.

The main goals of the collaboration, co-led by Jackson Orem, M.B.Ch.B., M.Med., director of the Uganda Cancer Institute, are to:

better understand the link between infectious disease and cancer;
improve access and delivery of clinical care to patients with infection-related cancers in the U.S. and Uganda; and
train the next generation of American and Ugandan physicians and scientists to combat infection-associated cancers at home and abroad.

"Up to one-quarter of the world’s cancers are attributable to chronic infections, Casper explained. Better understanding the link between infectious disease and cancer provides a unique opportunity to reduce cancer-related suffering and death in both resource-rich and resource-poor regions.

Casper and colleagues hope that this joint effort between the Hutchinson Center and the Uganda Cancer Institute will benefit the world by identifying new infectious causes of cancer, new ways to prevent infection-associated cancers such as through the development of new vaccines, and new ways to treat such cancers with nontoxic drugs, thus avoiding the need for chemotherapy.

Studying cancer in regions such as Uganda, where the burden of infection-related malignancies is extreme, is optimal for developing rapid and meaningful cancer treatments and diagnostics, said Casper, an assistant member of the Hutchinson Center’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, one of the nation’s largest infectious disease research groups.

The World Health Organization estimates that chronic infectious diseases cause more than 20 percent of all cancers in the world, including liver, cervical and gastric malignancies. Infection-related cancers are more frequent and often more severe in people infected with HIV. In resource-poor Uganda, the HIV epidemic is fueling a 20,000-fold upsurge in Kaposi’s sarcoma in adults and Burkitt’s lymphoma in children. Both are disfiguring cancers with abysmal survival rates due to lack of access to early diagnosis and treatment.

While the grant from USAID’s American Schools and Hospitals Abroad program will contribute significantly to the construction of a new outpatient cancer clinic and training facility, additional federal and private funding is being sought to complete the $1.4 million project and to construct an adjacent clinical and laboratory research building, said Banks Warden, executive director of the Hutchinson Center’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute.

We will soon launch a campaign to see if other foundations and individuals are interested in supporting this effort. It is a wonderful opportunity for a foundation or individual to come forward with a major gift to support global health, Warden said.

Support for the project to date has come from several sources, from initial funding provided by the Hutchinson Center and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to satellite grants from the National Institutes of Health and, most recently, the USAID funding.

Securing this federal grant would not have been possible without broad support from the Washington congressional delegation, Warden said. We are deeply indebted to our senators and representatives who got behind our efforts 100 percent, he said.

A letter of support signed by the congressional members stated: Cancer is all too common in East Africa, with the number of new cases diagnosed annually approximating the number of deaths. With these infrastructure improvements, cancer treatment for Ugandans will dramatically improve. In addition, the collaboration will allow for important questions about the biology of infectious-disease related cancers to be answered. Solutions discovered will be applicable globally.

Research conducted to date through the Seattle/Uganda partnership already has determined that many of the infectious diseases that cause cancer in low-resource areas are treatable at minimal costs. For example, it is estimated that 85 percent of Burkitt’s lymphoma (associated with human herpesvirus 4, also known as Epstein-Barr virus), the most common cancer in children from East Africa who are on average 5 years old when afflicted, can be cured for less than $600 a case. Similarly, 75 percent of Kaposi’s sarcoma (associated with human herpesvirus 8, or HHV-8), the most common cancer in East African adults, can be treated for less than $720 a case.

The Uganda Cancer Institute, established in 1967 in collaboration with the U.S. National Cancer Institute, has been the site of many landmark accomplishments, such as discovering new cancers, including Burkitt’s lymphoma, and developing novel treatment regimens. Over the years, however, the institute has fallen victim to neglect attributable to periods of tumultuous national politics. Its five cinderblock buildings bear scars of the nation’s troubled past.

Upon completion of the new, state-of-the-art facility, the Ugandan Ministry of Health has pledged $1.8 million to renovate and repurpose the existing buildings of the cancer institute. The renovation will include the construction of an inpatient facility. The Hutchinson Center has also committed $400,000 to construct new laboratory space for molecular diagnostics. The master plan for these renovation and construction projects was provided by facilities planning and construction staff at the Hutchinson Center.

Ultimately, the provision of new facilities for inpatient and outpatient cancer care, education and research will allow the Seattle/Uganda collaboration to:

provide first-rate cancer care in Uganda a country of more than 30 million with one of the highest cancer rates in the world and improve survival from most common cancers from 10 percent to 90 percent, saving an estimated 6,000 lives each year;
study the intersection between infections and cancer by promoting cutting-edge research aimed at pathophysiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infection-related cancers in Africa; and
improve the quality of medical education in oncology and increase the number of cancer specialists in Uganda seven-fold (there are currently just two practicing full-time oncologists in Uganda).

One of the biggest benefits the Hutchinson Center is bringing to Uganda is a training program to address the country’s lack of cancer specialists. Two Ugandan physician-scientists have already spent year-long fellowships at the Hutchinson Center; five more will be trained in the next three years. There are also plans to expand the training program to include other medical professionals, such as nurses and pharmacologists, Casper said.

The Hutchinson Center also plans to send up to 20 of its faculty members to Uganda in the next five years as part of a faculty exchange program. Researchers in oncology, infectious disease and epidemiology will provide training in a wide variety of subjects to Ugandan clinicians and scientists. They also will have the opportunity to initiate research projects in collaboration with Ugandan researchers.

"My hope," Casper said, "is that over the next five years we establish a first-class facility in Uganda, train a significant number of Ugandan cancer-care providers and that people who are interested in international oncology will come to the Center for the chance to work in Uganda.

The collaborative effort is also an opportunity for the Hutchinson Center to help mobilize humanitarian aid in this East African nation, where proper nutrition and medical care is scarce and where the families of patients are responsible for all nonmedical care, including food.

Having a healthy population is essential for the fabric and stability of the nation, Casper said. It is the Hutchinson Center’s obligation to seek the resources needed to provide care to the patients and clinical-research volunteers in Uganda. It’s also the right thing to do. There can be no greater mandate in cancer research than to wage the fight by doing the right thing.

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Note for media only: Photos of the Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases Clinic and Training Center are available upon request or from our online photo gallery. For more information about UPCID, please visit www.upcid.org.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Hutchinson Center researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit www.fhcrc.org.

This project is made possible in part by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the sole responsibility of the Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases (UPCID), a joint program of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Uganda Cancer Institute, and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Reserach Center
(206) 667-2896
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

Statewide teen smoking-cessation trial is the first to achieve significant increase in prolonged quit rates

October 12, 2009

SEATTLE Oct. 12, 2009 For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance Access" online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"When this study started, despite decades of research and dozens of intervention trials, there was no proven way to reach teens from the general population and recruit them into smoking cessation programs, and there was no proven way to help these teens quit," said Peterson, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and lead author of the paper that reported the results of the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington. Half of the schools were randomly assigned to the experimental intervention; teens in these schools were invited to take part in confidential, personalized telephone counseling designed to help motivate them to quit. The remaining 25 schools served as a comparison group; teen smokers from these schools did not participate in the telephone intervention. The study also included 745 nonsmokers to ensure that contacting students for participation in the trial would not reveal a participant’s smoking status.

Study recruitment was robust; in the experimental group 65.3 percent of the smokers were eligible and participated in the telephone intervention. Recruitment took place in their junior year and the counseling intervention took place during their senior year. "The literature says it is very difficult to recruit kids to teen smoking programs. People have tried. The field has encountered great obstacles in recruiting teens to smoking cessation programs. And so we took that as a challenge," Peterson said.

The study found that a proactive strategy of reaching out to teens and offering them the opportunity to receive up to nine personalized, confidential telephone counseling sessions effectively helped many of them to kick the habit. In addition, by proactively identifying and recruiting teen smokers (with parental consent for those under age 18), two-thirds of all identified smokers participated in the telephone counseling and nearly half completed all of their scheduled counseling calls.

At the completion of the study, 21.8 percent of all smokers (daily and less than daily) in the counseling group had achieved continuous quitting for six months, as compared to 17.7 percent of those in the comparison group, a difference of 4 percent.

The intervention also impacted three-month, one-month and seven-day smoking abstinence, with differences between the counseling group and the comparison group of 3.3 percent, 6.8 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively. Notably, the one-month and seven-day quit rates among the smokers who received telephone counseling were roughly three times higher than those reported in nearly 50 previous adolescent smoking-cessation trials of a variety of interventions conducted over the past two decades.

"These results are critically important for supporting and stimulating our nation’s search to find successful ways to help reduce smoking by teens and young adults," Peterson said.

An estimated 26.5 percent of high school seniors smoke monthly, and 13.6 percent smoke 10 or more cigarettes daily. Although nearly half of all current adolescent smokers report having tried to quit smoking in the past year, only about 4 percent per year succeed on their own. In addition, young adults ages 18 to 24 have the highest smoking rates in the U.S., ranging between 27 percent and 40 percent, depending on geographic region and socioeconomic status.

The telephone counseling intervention was based on the premise that smokers need to believe it is important to quit, have confidence they can quit and have the knowledge and skills needed to be successful with quitting. Therefore, the intervention integrated two types of counseling: motivational interviewing, which emphasizes building motivation and confidence for quitting, and cognitive behavioral skills training, which gives smokers the tools they need to learn how to quit.

Motivational interviewing, first described in the early '80s by William R. Miller, Ph.D., as a way to help treat problem drinkers, enhances a person’s motivation to change by exploring and resolving one's ambivalence about change. In this study, the technique was used to explore and resolve the participants' ambivalence about smoking and quitting, and to mobilize their inner resources to trigger a decision to quit.

"Motivational interviewing is very caring, nonjudgmental and respectful. It is non-confrontational. A counselor would never say, 'I want you to quit smoking.' Instead the counselor would ask what the behavior means to the participant. What do they like about it? What don’t they like about it?" explained Kealey, first author of the companion paper, which describes in detail the design and implementation of the telephone counseling intervention.

In motivational interviewing, the counselor would use reflective statements to repeat the participant’s own words back to him or her. For example: "So, it sounds to me like you smoke because it helps you to relax when you’re under stress. But on the other hand, you said that you really don’t like the way it smells, and that it’s really expensive. So what do you make of that?"

"In the end, it is the smoker's own reasons and desire to quit that motivate the quit attempt, said Kealey, project manager for the study.

Cognitive behavioral skills training seeks to help people build skills for quitting and preventing relapse through counseling strategies that emphasize practical tools, such as self-talk strategies, ways to cope with stress and smoking triggers, and collaborating on a plan for quitting. "While motivational interviewing increases a person’s motivation to quit, cognitive behavioral skills training gives them the resources and the confidence they need to be successful," Kealey said.

Adolescent smoking cessation studies conducted in the past 20 years have been largely unsuccessful in getting teens to quit. These studies have identified significant challenges. To date, only two other randomized controlled trials with smaller numbers of teen smokers than the Hutchinson Study and conducted in medical settings have shown promise in achieving significant teen quit rates.

So what makes the Hutchinson Study so effective? The researchers hypothesize that the reason is threefold:

The intervention was proactive, reaching out and engaging teens "Past research has shown that, for a multitude of reasons, many teen smokers do not seek out help with quitting. However, our study demonstrates that if we reach out to teens, without pressuring them to quit, many will talk to counselors about their smoking and some of those teens will decide to quit," Peterson said.

The counseling was offered by telephone "This allowed for private, confidential, one-to-one counseling and allowed the counselors to explore and focus on issues specific to the individual smoker," he said. Telephone counseling also gave teens control over the timing and length of the counseling sessions.

The counselors used motivational interviewing techniques in all communications with the teens "It seemed quite appropriate for us to test this deferential strategy in youth because teens, in particular, don't want to be told what to do," Peterson said. "Our goal was to put them in the driver’s seat."

So even though teens tend not to seek help for quitting smoking, this study indicates that they are more likely to succeed with quitting if they have help. "An important message from this study for teens and young adult smokers really for all smokers is that personalized telephone counseling can help one be successful with quitting smoking," Peterson said. Such help is available through the nation's network of quit lines, such as 1-800-QUIT-NOW offered through the Washington State Department of Health.

The National Cancer Institute funded the study, which also involved investigators at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.

Note for media only: To obtain embargoed copies of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute papers, "Group-Randomized Trial of a Proactive, Personalized Telephone Counseling Intervention for Adolescent Smoking Cessation" by Peterson and "Design and Implementation of an Effective Telephone Counseling Intervention for Adolescent Smoking Cessation" by Kealey, or to arrange interviews with the authors, please contact Kristen Woodward in Hutchinson Center media relations, 206-667-5095 or kwoodwar@fhcrc.org.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristen Woodward
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

RELATED CONTENT:
Personalized Telephone Counseling For Teen Smokers Editorialist Dr. Scott Leischow discusses this research.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute podcast, Oct. 28, 2009

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