Kelley McGill Asbestos Scholarship Essay

Atlanta Paramedic Wins Second Place in Mesothelioma Scholarship Contest

MesotheliomaHelp.org is proud to award a nursing student from Albany State University in Georgia with the $1,250 second-place prize as part of the organization’s annual Jan Egerton & Don Smitley Mesothelioma Scholarship contest. Kelley Ann McGill, of Atlanta, was one of four students from across the nation to earn a scholarship in this year’s essay contest.

In her essay, Kelley shared the story of her grandfather, a former electrical engineer who had always prided himself on working hard to stay healthy. Unfortunately, her grandfather’s work environment was not always a healthy one, and over the course of his career, he was exposed to the deadly mineral asbestos. In November 2017, he was diagnosed with Stage 3 small-cell lung cancer.

Kelley became her grandfather’s caregiver during the day, helping with medication, food and all his other needs. She has seen firsthand the toll that asbestos diseases such as lung cancer and mesothelioma can take on a person and a family. And she knows how difficult it can be to keep fighting.

“Do not take your good days for granted,” she advises in her essay. “I celebrate every good day that I have with my grandfather, the days that he is fussing at me for not getting enough sleep, or the days that he is spirited enough to give my stepdad, uncle, or mom a hard time. Cherish every smile, every laugh, every hug, every kiss, and every soft spoken ‘I love you too.’”

Since her grandfather’s diagnosis, Kelley has worked hard to educate herself and others about asbestos and its effects on the body. Already a paramedic, she has decided to further her education and earn a degree in nursing so she can do more for patients like her grandfather. She plans to use the scholarship money toward this goal.

About the Scholarship Contest

The Jan Egerton & Don Smitley Mesothelioma Scholarships are awarded each year to deserving students in universities and colleges throughout the United States. The scholarships are named after two respected mesothelioma warriors who put up a brave fight against the devastating asbestos cancer.

In total, $5,000 in scholarships was awarded this year to four deserving students. Out of dozens of outstanding entries, the winners were selected based on the well-researched and heartfelt essays they submitted.

The MesotheliomaHelp.org scholarships are generously funded by the nationally mesothelioma lawyers of Belluck & Fox, LLP.

“We are proud to support these deserving college students in their mission to raise awareness of the dangers of asbestos and its long-term health effects,” Belluck & Fox managing partner Joseph Belluck explained. “As a law firm focused on fighting for those harmed by asbestos, we know how important it is to warn people about exposure, and we appreciate these students for sharing their personal stories and insights.”

Asbestos and Mesothelioma Cancer

Asbestos is a naturally occurring fiber that has been shown to cause deadly diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer. For many decades, asbestos was commonly used in thousands of industrial, building and household products. Even today, despite being a known carcinogen, asbestos is not banned in the United States.

People were typically exposed to asbestos at work or during their time in the military. Some were exposed to asbestos in their homes.

Mesothelioma and lung cancer develop when microscopic asbestos fibers are inhaled and lodge in the lining of the chest wall and lungs or in the lungs themselves. Cancer can develop decades after a person was exposed to asbestos, and it is typically diagnosed in the later stages.

About MesotheliomaHelp.org

MesotheliomaHelp.org is a comprehensive resource for individuals and families who are coping with a mesothelioma diagnosis. The site connects patients and caregivers with knowledgeable medical providers, respected legal professionals and the most up-to-date information on treatment developments. Visit MesotheliomaHelp.org now to learn more about the disease.

The Results of Mesothelioma Research are Worth The Wait

Blood Test in Study for Predicting Lung Cancer Recurrence Could Also Help Guide Mesothelioma Treatment

In January, MesotheliomaHelp reported on the use of a Biocept, Inc. blood test as a possible early detection tool for mesothelioma. Now, the company reports it is testing the same tool to determine if it can help predict disease recurrence in lung cancer patients.

According to a July 23 press release from Biocept, Inc., the company is partnering with UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center with two clinical studies – one to predict cancer recurrence and another to predict treatment response. The studies will use Biocept’s Target Selector liquid biopsy assays to detect circulating tumor cells and circulating tumor DNA. To determine accuracy of the tests, the results will be compared with findings from CT or PET scans.

Even though there have been advances in the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation, the two organizations note the risk for “post-resection [after surgery] disease recurrence” in stage II or stage III cancers remains “unacceptably high.” The teams collaborating on the clinical studies are looking at lung, breast and colon cancer patients with Stage II or III recurrent cancer. They hope to find a way to predict disease recurrence in high risk patients via a blood sample, using biomarkers as a guide.

“The current standard of care to assess disease recurrence is CT imaging, which may only detect recurrence after significant organ damage has occurred,” said Razelle Kurzrock, M.D., Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy and Clinical Trials Office director, Moores Cancer at UC San Diego Health. “Detecting disease recurrence in these patients with a blood sample may enable more rapid and comprehensive treatment options.”

When surgeons operate on cancer patients, it is with a goal to remove as much of the malignancy as possible, and to achieve a macroscopically-complete resection, which refers to the removal of all visible tumor cells. However, it is the microscopic cells that may be left behind that can thrive and spread, leading to recurrence.

Mesothelioma, an unusual form of cancer caused by the dangerous asbestos. Exposure to airborne asbestos fibers, often has a complex growth pattern making complete surgical removal a very difficult task. Use of a simple blood test that could predict a mesothelioma patient’s potential for recurrence and response to treatments could mean extended survival.

“We believe that clinical results from our patented technologies can provide physicians with important information to better predict a patient’s response to therapy and monitor their disease progress and recurrence, which can lead to better patient outcomes,” said Biocept’s President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Nall.

Although mesothelioma and lung cancer are distinct cancers, the treatment protocol is similar. The mesothelioma community closely follows lung cancer research in the hopes that the results translate to pleural mesothelioma care. The results of these studies will be followed closely. Approximately 3,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with the terminal cancer.

Tracking the Spread of Mesothelioma With a Computer Program

Ubiquitous computing can no longer be ignored in the medical field. With nearly every patient and doctor connected and constantly available, mobile apps and personal medical devices are beginning to play a role in cancer care. Doctors can monitor a mesothelioma patient’s vital signs, side effects and symptoms through a cell phone. Now, researchers report they are taking the “power of computing” one step further by tracking cancer metastasis, or the spread of cancer, through a computer program.

In an effort to understand what drives metastasis, hoping to then uncover new therapies to stop cancer from spreading, researchers from Princeton University report they have devised an algorithm that can track migration patterns of metastatic cancer cells, according to a June 29 press release. The algorithm, named “metastatic and clonal history integrative analysis,” or MACHINA, integrates DNA sequence data with information that points to where cells are located in the body. The algorithm can help them simplify data to better determine how metastatic tumors are seeded through the cancer cell migrations.

Finding a way to halt the spread of deadly cancer cells is critical for improving survival in mesothelioma patients. Mesothelioma, caused by past exposure to asbestos, is an aggressive cancer that resists most anti-cancer drugs, allowing the cancer cells to continue to divide and spread throughout the body. According to the American Cancer Society, “With upwards of 90% of all cancer suffering and death associated with metastasis, it is the single most significant challenge to management of the disease.”

Ben Raphael, a professor of computer science at Princeton and the senior author of the new research, and his team, believe their model offers a “clearer picture of cancer migration histories” than other studies because of their combination approach to tracking the cells. They also include computations that look at tumor cells that travel in “clusters” to other parts of the body. Other studies, he says, rely solely on the DNA sequencing, and reported complex patterns. However, Raphael says the complex migration patterns did not “reflect current knowledge of cancer biology.”

“The data sets we get these days are very complex, but complex data sets don’t always require complex explanations,” said Raphael. “Our algorithm enables researchers to infer the past process of metastasis from DNA sequence data obtained at the present time.”

Raphael and the team report MACHINA found that metastatic disease “could result from fewer cellular migrations than previously thought.” This means that MACHINA can help reveal key mutations that cause cancer cells to break free and spread.

The team concluded, “MACHINA’s rigorous analysis of migration histories will aid in studies of the drivers of metastasis.”

Nearly 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. Finding an effective way to stop the cancer from spreading in the first place, as opposed to treating the cancer after it has spread, brings hope to the mesothelioma community. Patients and their families are being educated about this through various summer camps for mesothelioma patients.

Read the full study in the May issue of Nature Genetics.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0106-z

NIH “All of Us” Program May Guide Research for New Treatments For Mesothelioma

The National Institutes of Health has announced its “All of Us” research program is now open for enrollment. The program is looking for one million people to share their health information over decades to be used to speed up health research breakthroughs and to advance precision medicine.

Part of the Precision Medicine Initiative introduced by President Obama in January 2015, the “All of Us” program was created to support research to develop more effective ways to prolong health and treat disease. With the data bringing so many different “genes, microbiomes, environments, and lifestyles,” the information will make possible “more effective, targeted treatments for diseases like cancer and diabetes.”

“Imagine the power of a project that asks 1 million people from across the United States to volunteer to help find answers about virtually all health conditions we face,” said Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, in an opinion piece they wrote in USA Today on May 7.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/07/all-us-research-medical-issues-national-institutes-health-column/584949002/

Data Opens Door to Precision Medicine

The ultimate goal of the project is to create a database containing genetic information, biological samples, and dietary and lifestyle information of one million Americans who volunteer to share this information and, potentially, their electronic health records. This information will be used to “lay scientific foundation for precision medicine for many diseases,” according to the NIH.

https://syndication.nih.gov/multimedia/pmi/infographics/pmi-infographic.pdf

Precision, or personalized, medicine targets health care to the unique makeup of people and their diseases optimizing the potential for success of the treatment. This approach is especially beneficial for mesothelioma and other rare disease research.

Hoping for enrollees from “communities that have inadequately benefited from previous findings and breakthroughs,” Collins and Azar see the data as a way to “help science answer important questions about today’s growing epidemics and mysteries.” Mesothelioma continues to confound researchers and oncologists, so the unprecedented amount of data can only help improve outcomes.

“All of Us” Is Important to Mesothelioma Treatment

“By signing up for All of Us, you will join a mission to accelerate an emerging field called precision medicine,” said Azar.

Nearly 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. There is no cure for the cancer, but treatments intended to go after the unique characteristics of the disease have shown promise. Oncologists and mesothelioma patients are hopeful that this approach to research will bring personalized care to the forefront of treatment strategies.

The NIH reports 27,000 people have already enrolled in the study.

“We have the opportunity to better understand and anticipate how the complex interactions of behavioral, biological, environmental and socioeconomic factors may affect the health of each us — as individuals,” said Azar and Collins.

“Understanding these interactions may be key to developing treatments that deliver more value and better health for every American.”

For more information and to enroll, visit JoinAllofUs.org.

Is Mesothelioma Treatment Without Side Effects Possible?

Chemotherapy is vital in the treatment of mesothelioma. However, it often results in side effects, such as low blood cell counts, thinned or brittle hair, loss of appetite or weight, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, that can be difficult for patients to manage and can sometimes outweigh the benefits of the treatment. Now, researchers report they have developed a technique for delivering medications that are “free of side effects.”

Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine report that drugs are designed to target an offending molecule, that which makes a person sick, by completely blocking its access to a cell. By doing so, however, any good that the molecule may offer is also stifled. The team, led by J. Julius Zhu, professor of pharmacology at UVA, determined that molecules have different functions throughout a cell, and they were able to develop a targeted delivery method for drugs that can home in on a specific location of a cell while avoiding those locations that could lead to side effects, according to a July 5 press release from the University.

“The problem with side effects is caused because you just could not distinguish the molecules doing different things in the same cell,” Zhu said. “If you blocked a molecule, you blocked it regardless of what it was doing. And that usually has unwanted side effects.”

Treatment for mesothelioma, a rare, aggressive form of cancer caused by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers is complex and, depending on the stage of the disease, typically involves a multi-modal approach including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. While these treatment options are among the keys to improve the chances of the battling the disease, they can come with pain and sometimes debilitating side effects leading to a poor quality of life. Patients often need to discontinue their mesothelioma treatments that are killing off the cancer cells because the side effects are nearly worse than the disease.

According to Zhu, the concept behind this targeted approach was “simple,” but the execution of it took many years. The new drugs, he says, will be especially useful for cancers, and “adds a new level of precision to the concept of precision medicine – medicine tailored exactly to a patient’s needs.” Precision medicine has the best chance of helping a mesothelioma patient achieve extended survival.

The technique will also speed up the development of new treatments by letting researchers more quickly understand what molecules are doing and which should be targeted, according to the press release.

Finding a way to safely deliver toxic chemotherapy and other anti-cancer drugs to mesothelioma patients is critically important to allow patients to continue to receive treatments without having other aspects of their health compromised from dangerous side effects.

Nearly 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year.

Read the full study in the May 16 issue of the journal Neuron.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30283-6

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