Onco Actu du 2 octobre 2018

	1. Biologie
The Human Cell Atlas Is Biologists' Latest Grand Project [Wired] The goal is to create a massive map of everything we know about all the cells in the human body, like the human genome did with DNA.
	4. Dépistage, diagnostic et pronostic
Cancer patients to be promised diagnosis within three weeks [The Telegraph] The new policy will mean millions more patients will be offered CT and MRI scans via mobile units set up in supermarkets and shopping centres across the country.
	5. Traitements
He Got Schizophrenia. He Got Cancer. And Then He Got Cured. [NY Times] A bone-marrow transplant treated a patient’s leukemia — and his delusions, too. Some doctors think they know why.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
Preventing tumor spread may not improve quality of life [Reuters] Xie and colleagues reanalyzed data from nearly 40 randomized trials involving multiple cancer types. They found that “progression-free survival,” or the length of time doctors could keep the cancer under control, was not linked with health-related quality of life.
Health-related quality of life overlooked in drug studies extending progression-free survival of cancer patients [McMaster University] "Given the increased use of progression-free survival as the primary outcome in new oncology drug trials, and uncertainty of overall survival, it remains possible that patients are receiving toxic and/or expensive treatments without experiencing important benefit," said Feng Xie, senior author of the study.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Bacterial Therapy Tolerable, Shows Early Promise in Patients With Advanced Solid Tumors [AACR] Janku and colleagues evaluated the intratumoral injection of C. novyi-NT spores in an open-label, first-in-human study. Between November 2013 and April 2017, the researchers enrolled 24 patients with treatment-refractory solid tumors, with 15 patients having sarcoma, seven patients having diverse carcinoma, and two patients having melanoma.
Bacterial injections into tumors show early promise for treating cancer [Science] The injections appear to activate an immune response that also targets the tumor. There are still questions about the safety of the approach. But given how many patients develop resistance or don’t respond to current cancer treatments, bacterial injections have generated enough interest that they’re part of a new clinical trial combining bacteria with an established immune therapy.
	5.12.1 Immunothérapies - partenariats
Dragonfly Therapeutics in $695M cancer R&D pact with Merck [FierceBiotech] For Merck, it gets exclusive options to license a number of Dragonfly’s candidate NK cell engager immunotherapies in certain solid cancers. It’s an early-stage bet, but one Merck will hope to gain from down the line.
Merck’s cancer R&D juggernaut ties up to little Dragonfly’s natural born killer platform — with billions on the line [EndPoints] The company’s platform centers on TriNKETs (Tri-specific, NK cell Engager Therapies), a binding mechanism that links natural killer cells to the proteins found on the surface of cancer cells. And that kind of approach, they believe, can create a potent next-gen immunotherapy approach — potentially a big deal for a company like Merck.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T, thérapies cellulaires
Researchers boost understanding of T-cell therapy in blood cancer [Novartis] The study settles the question about whether these relapsed patients whose tumor cells no longer show signs of the CD19 protein might benefit from another round of tisagenlecleucel, Orlando says. They won’t benefit, because the genetic mutations have created versions of the CD19 protein that can’t be targeted by the therapy.
Breakthrough Leukemia Treatment Backfires in a Rare Case [NY Times] This case is the sad flip side of another one, reported in May, in which a leukemia patient’s remission was traced back to a single cell, a genetically altered immune-system cell that reproduced unstoppably and fought the disease.
In rare case, patient developed resistance to CAR-T after cancer cell began hiding in ‘plain sight’ [STAT] The case, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, appears to have been exceedingly rare — one occurrence among the hundreds of cases of CAR-T treatment that have been examined. But as the treatments become more widely used, experts say, the case also points to the importance of researchers understanding all the ways in which the process of making them can go wrong.
	5.12.6 Immunothérapies - AMM
FDA’s Latest Cancer Approval Underscores Immunotherapy Nobel Prize [Xconomy] Regeneron and Sanofi say that, despite being late to the dance with cemiplimab, they have tools and skills in-house that will help winnow down the sprawling matrix of potential combinations. One is Regeneron’s technology to genetically alter mice to produce human traits such as antibody proteins.
	5.2 Pharma
Seattle Genetics and Takeda Announce Positive Results from Phase 3 ECHELON-2 Clinical Trial Evaluating ADCETRIS® (Brentuximab Vedotin) in Frontline CD30-Expressing Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma [Takeda] ADCETRIS in Combination with Chemotherapy Achieved Primary Endpoint, Demonstrating a Statistically Significant Improvement in Progression-Free Survival Compared to a Standard of Care Chemotherapy.
	6.1 Observation
Sex-linked Differences in Cancer May Identify Gender-specific Genetic Drivers and Predict Responses to Treatment [AACR] “The results from our pan-cancer analysis suggest that there are fundamental underlying differences in the way that male and female tumors initiate and progress.”
	6.10.1 Politiques (USA)
The Realities of “Right to Try” [ASH] “I don’t know why any company that is committed to gathering evidence to support a claim of efficacy, that knows it can use the expanded-access pathway, and that works collaboratively with the FDA would go the ‘Right to Try’ route,” Dr. Joffe said. “I do not see any positive benefit.”
	6.12 Ethique
Cancer Center’s Board Chairman Faults Top Doctor Over ‘Crossed Lines’ [NY Times] “I have to say, while we pushed back on a lot and discussed a lot, we were not as effective as we should have been,” Mr. Warner said, according to a preliminary transcript of a meeting with the hospital’s staff that was inadvertently emailed by the hospital to a reporter for The New York Times. “He crossed lines that we should have done more to stop.”
	6.14 Prix Nobel
The snub club: Crucial contributors to cancer immunotherapy were excluded from the medicine Nobel [STAT] At an immuno-oncology meeting in New York — where on Monday afternoon Allison was greeted like a rock star, with scientists asking for his autograph and requesting selfies — three experts in cancer immunotherapy said they were “shocked” that three scientists who were key to the development of checkpoint inhibitors that exploit the PD-1 pathway were overlooked, rule of three or not.
AACR Congratulates Dr. James P. Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo on 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine [AACR] Allison’s early research focused on understanding how the immune system defends the body from pathogens and cancers, with an emphasis on the role of immune cells called T cells. As part of this work, he discovered the protein CTLA-4 and showed that it functions to put a brake on T-cell responses. Honjo’s research identified the protein PD-1 on immune cells and, after rigorous investigation, showed that it also operates as a brake on T cells, but that it functions in a different way to CTLA-4.
Nobel Prize 2018: How Allison and Honjo turned immune cells against cancer [Cancer Research UK] “This Nobel Prize really shows that basic science can have a huge impact on medicine,” says Quezada. “Allison was always out at conferences, but he let the data do the talking.”
Cancer immunotherapy pioneers win medicine Nobel [Science] News of the Nobel was met with enthusiasm at the Fourth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference, which kicked off yesterday in New York City.
James Allison and Tasuku Honjo Win Nobel Prize [The Scientist] In 1996, Allison’s team showed that antibodies against CTLA-4 not only got rid of cancer, but prevented new tumors from forming in mice. “I thought this was pretty cool. We patented it,” Allison told The Scientist earlier this year. “I thought everybody would jump at it.” But it took him two years of shopping his immunotherapy idea around to pharmaceutical companies before one finally bit.
A Nobel for Immuno-Oncology [In the Pipeline] Today’s prize was widely anticipated, and that’s because it’s so well-deserved. The only regret I have about it – and it’s a regret that shows up every year during Nobel season – is that the prize tends to make discoveries like these seem like the work of far fewer people than they really are. This one has absolutely taken a scientific army, and the campaign continues.
NIH grantees win 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [NIH] Dr. Allison has received continuous funding from NIH since 1979, receiving more than $13.7 million primarily from NIH’s National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
	6.5 Médecines alternatives/complémentaires
A whole issue of JACM devoted to “integrative oncology” propaganda? Oh, goody. [Science-Based Medicine] Last week, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine published a Special Focus Issue on “integrative oncology.” In reality, it’s propaganda that promotes pseudoscience and the “integration” of quackery into oncology.
	6.6 Publications
Finland joins Europe’s bold open-access push [Nature] Nation’s funder is the first to join Plan S — which aims to make all scientific works free to read on publication — since the effort was announced.