Onco Actu du 8 février 2019

	1. BIOLOGIE
Cancer-Associated Circular RNAs Catalogued Across Tumor Types [Genome Web] "The global burden of circRNAs was correlated with tumor aggressivity," the authors wrote, adding that the cancer transcriptome in general "harbors numerous functional entities not observable with traditional molecular strategies."
A hidden route for fatty acids can make cancers resistant to therapy [VIB] This finding can explain the resistance of particular cancer types to fatty acid metabolism inhibition. It is essential to gain more insights in this process to develop novel therapeutic strategies. The results are published in the renowned journal Nature.
The Patient Had Bone Cancer. The Diagnosis Arrived 240 Million Years Too Late. [NY Times] “What makes this really cool is that now we understand that cancer is basically a deeply rooted switch that can be turned on or off,” Ms. Haridy said. “It’s not something that happened recently in our evolution. It’s not something that happened early in human history, or even in mammal history.”
Core Concept: Solving Peto’s Paradox to better understand cancer [PNAS] To unravel the mystery of Peto’s paradox, researchers are studying the genome sequences of animals across the tree of life, especially those that are particularly large or particularly long-lived. But there’s no one answer. Every species studied so far seems to have solved this paradox in a different way, possibly because of different life histories and evolutionary selective pressures.
	3.1 PRÉVENTION - TABAC
State-Specific Patterns of Cigarette Smoking, Smokeless Tobacco Use, and E-Cigarette Use Among Adults — United States, 2016 [CDC] Across all states, current e-cigarette use was significantly higher among current cigarette smokers than among former or never cigarette smokers. States with the highest prevalence of cigarette smoking generally had a high prevalence of current e-cigarette use.
FDA pulls up Walgreens for violating tobacco sale laws by selling to minors [Reuters] Walgreens is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, with 22 percent of its inspected stores having illegally sold tobacco products to minors, the U.S. health regulator said in a statement.
	4.1 DÉP., DIAG. & PRONO. - PROSTATE
Mount Sinai and USC Researchers Develop Prostate Cancer Prediction Tool That Has Unmatched Accuracy [Mount Sinai] A team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed a novel machine-learning framework that distinguishes between low- and high-risk prostate cancer with more precision than ever before.
	4.2 DÉP., DIAG. & PRONO. - GÉNOME
Skeptics Unfairly Target UK Gene Sequencing Initiative [Techonomy] While there is real concern that people might expect too much from their genome sequence, in many cases what this objection really boils down to is that physicians are largely unfamiliar with genomic data and dread the idea of having patients ask questions that they don’t know how to answer.
The NHS should run a mile from the genome sequencing goldrush [The Guardian] Ignoring all concerns, the health service seems determined to jump on the dubious ‘personalised medicine’ bandwagon.
	4.7 DÉP., DIAG. & PRONO. - COL DE L'UTÉRUS
HPV cervical screening test switch ‘effective’, says pilot study [Cancer Research UK] Plans are already underway to change the order in which samples are tested in the UK’s cervical screening programme. This would involve first testing samples for HPV, which is responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancer.
	5. TRAITEMENTS
Precision medicine’s rosy predictions haven’t come true. We need fewer promises and more debate [STAT] While we are occasionally told that we are Luddites or nihilists (generally without much debate of the merits of our position), the most frequent communications we receive have been along the lines of “I agree with you, but can’t speak up publicly for fear of losing my grants, alienating powerful people, or upsetting my dean.” This atmosphere cannot be good for the culture of science.
Most biomedical studies fail to report if results differ by sex [The Guardian] Analysis of more than 11.5m medical research papers published between 1980 and 2016 found a majority overlooked the role of sex differences in genetics, physiology and the way the body responds to drugs.
	5.1 TRAITEMENTS - PRÉ-CLINIQUE
Breast cancer cells shifted into HER2 positive status with bold new strategy [Scripps] “This study is proof of concept for the strategy of creating sensitivity to a drug where one otherwise wouldn’t exist,” Disney says. “It also validates the notion that transcription of genes can be modulated via small molecule compounds engineered to bind to relevant noncoding RNA."
	5.10 TRAITEMENTS - ESSAIS
New ‘Trojan horse’ cancer treatment shows early promise in multiple tumour types [Institute of Cancer Research] The innovative new drug, called tisotumab vedotin (or TV for short), releases a toxic substance to kill cancer cells from within. The results have been so positive the drug has now moved forward to phase II trials in cervical cancer and will be tested in a range of additional solid tumour cancers.
The Clinic Giveth And Most Definitely Taketh Away [In The Pipeline] Why did the MacroGenix antibody work as well as it seems to have worked? Why did Solid Bio’s gene therapy fail to cause any new protein to be produced? Why did Lilly’s drug not actually do anything for sarcoma patients, even though mechanistically it really seemed as if it should? We don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know, and what you’re seeing is how (slowly, expensively, painfully) we find the answers.
	5.12 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES
Immunotherapy effective for cancer patients with HIV [UPI] Checkpoint inhibitors kept the viral loads of 93 percent of cancer patients with HIV suppressed, and was effective against the cancer, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA Oncology.
	5.12.8 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES - ECONOMIE
Harpoon’s IPO Spears $76M as Prostate Cancer Drug Continues Testing [Xconomy] Harpoon calls its drugs “T cell engagers”— engineered proteins that target cells that have certain antigens, which are also proteins, on their surface. The company’s proprietary drug platform has yielded four drug candidates so far.
	5.2 PHARMA
Researchers spotlight a basket of ‘good’ response rates for the next ADC in Seattle Genetics’ pipeline [EndPoints] In a Phase I/II trial involving 147 patients — spanning 6 different cancer types — who have become resistant to an average of three types of prior treatments, the ADC is found to yield responses in a “significant minority,” meaning their tumors either shrank or stopped growing.
	5.2.3 PHARMA - ÉCONOMIE
NYCEDC Finally Puts Its NY Bio Fund to Work With $60M For HiberCell [Xconomy] The launch of HiberCell has been a long time coming for the NYCEDC. The quasi-governmental agency is focused on job creation in New York and teamed up with Celgene, Eli Lilly, and GE Ventures in 2013 to amass more than $100 million with the hope of forming 15 to 20 local life science startups by 2020.
HiberCell launches with $60M+ to combat cancer relapse and metastasis [Fierce Biotech] The hope is that by understanding how dormant DTCs drive metastasis, HiberCell will be able to identify, isolate, genomically and transcriptionally annotate them and, eventually, drug them.
Arch joins Celgene, China investors bankrolling a pioneering New York biotech startup focused on a new approach to metastasis [EndPoints] While a massive amount of cancer research has been devoted to a better understanding of tumors and new and better ways to kill tumor cells, Aguirre-Ghiso’s research has centered on “dormant” disseminated tumor cells, or DTCs, that can reactivate long after drugs have wiped out all appearances of cancer — fueling a metastatic response that comes back to kill the patient with near certainty.
	5.6 ESMO
TAT International Congress 2019: the home of phase I oncology [ESMO] The Congress, to be held 25-27 February in Paris, France, will bring together around 400 attendees from all over the world and is addressed to basic scientists, physicians and translational researchers from academic settings, industry and regulatory agencies for the common aim of speeding up the development of new anti-cancer treatment for the benefit of cancer patients.
	6. LUTTE CONTRE LES CANCERS
Trump’s $500 million for childhood cancer? Scientists have ideas how to spend it [STAT] Scientists are sometimes reluctant to jump into pediatric cancer research because, given the high cure rates, “they’re worried that they won’t get a high enough priority score to get funded,” believing that adult cancers with abysmal survival rates will prevail in the grants competition, said Dr. Lee Helman, a former NCI official and pediatric cancer specialist who is now at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
	6.10.1 POLITIQUES (USA)
NIH asks inspector general to investigate 12 allegations of foreign influence in U.S. research [STAT] The dozen allegations represent a tiny handful of the research NIH funds. The oversight, however, highlights a broader concern in American research: that some technologies developed by U.S. researchers using public dollars could wind up in the hands of foreign governments and scientific agencies.
	6.11 PATIENTS
An Update on My Cancer [David Mitchell] I am writing a sentence that no cancer patient wants to write: I am relapsing — again. I’m also grateful for Patients For Affordable Drugs. I started this organization to help patients fight for more affordable drugs. But now, it’s really helping me. It’s a world of uncertainty ahead.
Julie Yip-Williams, Writer of Candid Blog on Cancer, Dies at 42 [NY Times] Ms. Yip-Williams’s richly detailed blog, which she started writing after receiving her diagnosis in 2013, was more than an account of her siege with cancer. It was also a meditation on love and family as well as a message of openness to her young daughters, Mia and Isabelle, about her illness.
	6.3 ASSOCIATIONS/FONDATIONS
St. Baldrick’s Foundation and American Cancer Society Announce a New Partnership to Conquer Kids’ Cancers [ACS] Groundbreaking partnership aims to raise $11 million to fund the most innovative and cutting-edge research.
	6.6 PUBLICATIONS
Bitcoin for the biological literature [Nature] Scientific publishing is increasingly adopting the technology underlying cryptocurrencies.
	6.7 DMP, BIG DATA & APPLIS
What Is A Data Science Mindset -- And Does Pharma R&D Really Need One? [Forbes] In theory, having all the data better organized could, as data scientists envision, lead to greater insights. But most pharma folks I know are pretty skeptical about this, and many data science people worry that retrofitting data -- and culture -- may be prohibitively difficult.
	6.7.1 IA/BIOINFORMATIQUE
Artificial intelligence in cancer imaging: Clinical challenges and applications [CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians] Although most studies evaluating AI applications in oncology to date have not been vigorously validated for reproducibility and generalizability, the results do highlight increasingly concerted efforts in pushing AI technology to clinical use and to impact future directions in cancer care.
	6.8 COMMUNICATION
Winning the War on Cancer: why words matter [Institute of Cancer Research] Professor Paul Workman cautions that aggressive military language can be unhelpful in describing some patients’ experience of living with cancer – and oversimplifies the overall challenge of cancer research.