The Research Evangelist

Let me tell you about one of the most passionate, committed cancer researchers I have ever met. I actually first met Johnathan Whetstine on Twitter, in January of 2016. He started following me and I started following him because we seemed to share and like similar content and points of view on Twitter. The common theme was the need to support basic cancer research. At the time I was working for the National Foundation for Cancer Research and my role was to raise money to support cancer research laboratories like Johnathan’s. After a series of exchanges during the spring on Twitter, he asked me if I was going to the Partners Healthcare World Medical Innovation Forum in Boston. I told him I was, and we planned to meet there. What I didn’t know until I got there, was that Johnathan was actually one of the presenters! Turns out he was to be onstage when they revealed the “ Disruptive Dozen .” The Disruptive Dozen was created to identify and rank the most disruptive technologies that Part

MEET JOHNATHAN WHETSTINE Me and Johnathan outside his lab in Charlestown, MA I had the privilege of interviewing Johnathan Whetstine , a cancer researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, at his laboratory to get his perspective on precision medicine. Johnathan’s field is cancer epigenetics. His lab investigates how the microenvionment around DNA controls gene expression while maintaining a stable genome. I thought he’d be the perfect person to give me historical context of precision medicine and what role basic scientific research plays in the process. “If you ask me as a basic scientist, the beauty of precision medicine is that you are starting to apply mechanistic knowledge in the context of how individuals will be diagnosed and treated.  By applying knowledge from laboratory settings, the medical community can make better decisions about what biomarkers to use as well as make predictions about the response,” said Johnathan.   He added, “By taking this approach, you’r

Taking The Mystery Out Of Cancer Research When I started working at the National Foundation for Cancer Research, I was charged with educating our donors about the cancer research we were funding. To do that, I felt it would be helpful to meet the actual researchers personally, get to know them and their work, so that I could articulate this to our donors. What better way to take the mystery out of research by sharing their stories? I became known as the Cancer Research Evangelist because after getting to know many cancer researchers personally, and visiting their laboratories, I became an advocate for the need for funding to support their work. In my experience, many of the researchers I met were passionate and approachable. They had offices with pictures of their families, they loved their work, and they just came across as real people. However, not a lot of people I know have ever met a cancer researcher. I think it’s important that researchers and patients get to know eac

When I was diagnosed with lung cancer years ago, my wife (who is a nurse) told me that the first thing I needed to do was to become my own advocate – to be proactive in seeking information about my disease and my care strategy. Of course, this was before the advent of genetic testing and the era of precision medicine. But even today, too many cancer patients die or suffer through toxic treatments and expensive hospitalizations when state of the art molecular testing could have offered better options with either approved treatments or promising clinical trials. Most patients are not as proactive and self-advocating as they could be, and there is a need to raise this awareness about just how a newly diagnosed patient can become his/her own advocate. One way is to connect with other patients with a similar diagnosis, either online or in person. More and more cancer patients are attending medical conferences and connecting with other patients. In many cases, because of molecular testi

It wasn’t that long ago that a diagnosis of stage 4 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) was death sentence. Patients often heard “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do” or “it’s time to get your affairs in order.” Unfortunately, too often that communication still happens today. However, with the advent and increasing availability of molecular testing, we are able to identify biomarkers that can lead to available targeted treatments. My friend Linnea Olson is one shining example of how far we’ve come in lung cancer treatment, and gives me hope for good outcomes if patients get their tumors tested. It’s also why I am such a passionate advocate cancer research and precision medicine.                                              Linnea (on right) and Dr. Alice Shaw In 2006, Linnea heard the words ‘there is nothing else we can do.” Never one to turn away from the truth she wanted to know more, she wanted to know how much time remained. The answer was three to five months. And

As I’ve previously written, the most useful biomarkers for predicting the efficacy of targeted therapy in advanced NSCLC are genomic alterations known as "driver mutations." These mutations occur in cancer cells within genes encoding for proteins critical to cell growth and survival. Through the use of molecular testing, the discovery of genetic mutations that drive NSCLC is rapidly improving the outlook for some patients in stage 4 disease. This is significant because almost 40% of lung cancer diagnoses are stage 4 patients. One of the first breakthroughs was the discovery of the EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) mutation, which is present in about 10 percent of patients who are diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States (interestingly more common in patients with adenocarcinomas and no prior history of smoking, as well as in women and those of Asian descent). I remember being at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in 2004 and the buzz s

Vice President Joe Biden will be leaving office in 2 weeks. This has me thinking about what role he will play in the cancer community moving forward. I’ve been optimistic about increased cancer research funding and advances in targeted treatments since President Obama announced his Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) in early 2015, a research effort focusing on bringing precision medicine to many aspects of healthcare. The mission statement of the PMI is “To enable a new era of medicine through research, technology, and policies that empower patients, researchers and providers to work together toward development of individualized care”. In his budget for fiscal 2016 he included $216 million in funding for the initiative for the NIH, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the FDA.   I was even more enthusiastic when in his 2016 State of the Union, Obama called on Vice President Biden to lead a new, national “Moonshot” initiative to eliminate cancer as we know it. He launched the