To accelerate breakthroughs, the Damon Runyon Foundation provides today's best young scientists with funds to pursue innovative cancer research.
- Today’s Promising Areas of Cancer Research
- What is Cancer?
- A Broken Pipeline?
A Generation of Science at Risk
- ARISE Report
Early Career Scientists and High-Risk, High Reward Research - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer (And How To Win It)
Clifton Leaf - Fortune Magazine
December 15, 2008
Renier J. Brentjens, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator '06-'09) and colleagues at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, reported the success of a novel therapy regimen in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) patients. Previously untreated CLL patients were sequentially treated with the chemotherapeutic fludarabine, followed by chemotherapeutic drug cyclophosphamide, then the targeted therapy rituximab/Rituxan (a monoclonal antibody that destroys B lymphocytes). This treatment achieved an impressive positive response in 89% of patients, with a markedly improved 5-year survival rate of 71% compared with 48% survival for patients treated with chemotherapy alone. These results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.