Contact: Leonard N. Karp
215-575-3720
lkarp@philadelphiamedicine.com
September 27, 2006
For immediate release:
In this month’s edition:
- Three Vaccine Scientists Honored With The Gold Medal of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- Department of Defense Awards $10.7 Million Center of Excellence Grant to Fox Chase Cancer Center’s V. Craig Jordan for Research on New Breast Cancer Treatment
- Temple University Hospital Lung Center Awarded JCAHO Certification; Among First in the Nation to Earn Gold Seal of Approval in Lung Volume Reduction Surgery
Editors note: Research, new techniques and improved facilities by Philadelphia International Medicine hospitals and physicians may lead to new ways to treat some of our most challenging diseases. Below are just some examples from our hospitals.
Three Vaccine Scientists Honored With The Gold Medal
of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia - The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia recognized the achievements of three scientists today for their discovery of the rotavirus vaccine. Each received The Gold Medal of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, an honor last awarded in 1983.
H. Fred Clark, DVM, PhD; Paul A. Offit, MD; and Stanley A. Plotkin, MD, invented the new rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq. It is the only vaccine available in the United States for use against rotavirus gastroenteritis, a common childhood illness that is the single largest infectious disease killer of infants and young children worldwide.
Rotavirus affects nearly all children at some point, often with mild symptoms, but in other cases with severe and potentially life-threatening diarrhea and dehydration. Among children under five in the United States, it is estimated that 2.7 million episodes of rotavirus occur each year, leading to approximately 250,000 emergency room visits and up to 70,000 hospitalizations. Worldwide, approximately 600,000 children die each year from rotavirus.
"By creating a vaccine that will virtually eradicate rotavirus, Drs. Clark, Offit and Plotkin have helped to promote the health and welfare of children, our nation’s greatest resource," said Richard M. Armstrong, Jr., chairman, Board of Trustees at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In 1963, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia created The Gold Medal to recognize those who have had a profound impact on children’s healthcare in the United States and throughout the world." The Gold Medal of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is awarded to individuals or institutions that have enhanced the welfare of children through major contributions in medicine, surgery and other specialties; psychiatry and social sciences; education and research.
"At The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, our mission pushes us to continually transform pediatric healthcare so that one day, we can eradicate all childhood diseases," said Steven M. Altschuler, MD, president and chief executive officer of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Altschuler added, "Rotavirus is the next step in this transformation. Drs. Clark, Offit and Plotkin’s discovery of the rotavirus vaccine will save the lives of millions of children. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is proud to award the Hospital’s highest honor, The Gold Medal, to recognize their contribution to advancing children’s healthcare."
The Gold Medal was last awarded in 1983 to Gertrude Henle, MD, and Werner Henle, MD, for major contributions in diagnosis and disease prevention with the creation of the mumps and influenza vaccines. In 1981, C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD, was awarded The Gold Medal for advancing the health of children through the development of pediatric surgery.
Drs. Clark, Offit and Plotkin led laboratory studies of the rotavirus vaccine at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and The Wistar Institute between 1980 and 1991. Since 1991, the vaccine has been developed for commercial use by Merck & Co., Inc., which conducted extensive clinical trials.
RotaTeq was approved for licensing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on February 2, 2006. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an expert panel selected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, added the vaccine to the list of routinely recommended childhood immunizations on February 21, 2006. Today, the vaccine is available at most pediatricians’ offices. RotaTeq is delivered by mouth, in three doses, at well-baby visits at ages two, four and six months.
Dr. Offit is currently chief of Infectious Diseases, Maurice R. Hilleman Endowed Chair in Vaccinology, and director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Clark is a research professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital. Dr. Offit and Dr. Clark are also adjunct professors at The Wistar Institute. Dr. Plotkin, an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Wistar and a former director of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital, developed a number of previous vaccines, including the vaccine that has eradicated rubella (German measles) in the United States.
Department of Defense Awards $10.7 Million Center of Excellence Grant
to Fox Chase Cancer Center’s V. Craig Jordan for Research on New Breast Cancer Treatment
V. Craig Jordan, OBE, Ph.D., D.Sc., of Fox Chase Cancer Center has received a $10.7 million grant from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program for a Breast Cancer Center of Excellence focused on developing a new treatment model for breast cancer to reverse the eventual development of resistance to anti-estrogen therapy. The five-year multidisciplinary project, intended to encompass both laboratory research and clinical trials, involves scientists and physicians at Fox Chase and three other institutions, representing four task teams.
"The DoD Breast Cancer Research Program is pleased to support this innovative project by Dr. Jordan, his collaborators and Fox Chase Cancer Center to address a critical issue in breast cancer—the identification of new therapeutic drugs to treat women with breast cancer," said Col. Janet R. Harris, M.S.N., Ph.D., director of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs administering the DoD Breast Cancer Research Program. "Through this project, new treatments will be brought from the laboratory to stage I and II clinical trials, facilitating the process for making new breast cancer therapeutic drugs available sooner."
This is Fox Chase’s second Center of Excellence grant received in five years. In 2001, the Department of Defense awarded a $6 million dollar grant for the development of the nation's first Behavioral Center of Excellence for Breast Cancer Research.
Medical oncologist Lori J. Goldstein, MD, director of Fox Chase’s multidisciplinary Breast Evaluation Center, is Jordan’s co-principal investigator for the new Center of Excellence grant. Jordan is vice president and scientific director of medical science at Fox Chase and holds its Alfred G. Knudson Jr., MD, PhD, Chair in Cancer Research.
Jordan is known as the "father of tamoxifen" for his seminal work that led to the validation of tamoxifen as a therapy targeted to treat breast cancer and the first-ever drug to prevent breast cancer. Used for breast cancer treatment since the 1970s, tamoxifen is also the most widely used drug to treat breast cancer.
Much of Jordan’s 35-year research career has focused on "designer estrogens" such as tamoxifen and newer drugs. Classed as selective estrogen-receptor modulators, or SERMs, they act like the hormone estrogen in some ways but not in others. These drugs can bind to the hormone receptors found in breast cells and thus block the effects of natural estrogen, which can promote breast cancer.
About two-thirds of breast cancers test positive for hormone receptors, so for many breast cancer patients, treatment with tamoxifen or newer drugs (such as aromatase inhibitors that stop estrogen production in postmenopausal women) can slow or stop the growth of cancer cells. Tamoxifen can also block the effects of natural estrogen in healthy breast cells, helping reduce the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease.
"In the past 25 years, the estrogen receptor has proven to be an important target for the treatment of breast cancer," Jordan explained. "However, there is a need for a new strategy to reverse the eventual development of antihormonal drug resistance, to ensure that effective agents can ultimately be used indefinitely."
The research to be conducted under the DoD grant takes advantage of the discovery that breast cancer cells devise complex survival strategies in response to estrogen-blocking drugs. These survival strategies allow cancer cells to overcome the protection the drugs confer.
However, Jordan’s laboratory studies have shown that these drug-resistant cells can now be killed by tiny doses of actual estrogen. In resistant cancer cells, the estrogen no longer stimulates growth but instead triggers rapid programmed cell death—a process called apoptosis that allows aging or mutated cells to self-destruct.
Fox Chase researchers will work with the task teams and biostatisticians at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C., and Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Ariz., to create a unique subcellular map of the new biology of estrogen that results in the rapid apoptosis. Then Fox Chase and the task team at Johns Hopkins University will conduct phase I and II clinical studies to evaluate estrogen-induced apoptosis in the tumor.
"The centerpiece of our effort is the clinical trials consortium enhanced with consumer advocate participants from Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, National Breast Cancer Coalition and Research Advocacy Network" Jordan said. "No single site or clinical organization alone can recruit the necessary number of patients for these clinical trials without the partnership of advocates to encourage eligible women to take part and to aid in providing the education and support they need."
"We will rapidly export our preliminary clinical finding to the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, which will establish the dose of short-term estrogen treatment necessary to be given to patients," Jordan added.
Jordan’s published studies of tamoxifen and other designer estrogens have made him one of the top 20 most-cited breast cancer researchers over the past decade. He was the first scientist to demonstrate tamoxifen’s ability to prevent breast cancer in laboratory rats. His pioneering work guided the evolution from preclinical lab studies to clinical research on the drug. Jordan also was instrumental in the development of the estrogen-modulating compound raloxifene, originally approved for osteoporosis and now shown to match tamoxifen in reducing breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women.
His awards include the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation’s 2003 Charles F. Kettering Prize, the American Cancer Society’s 2002 Medal of Honor, the 2001 Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research and the first Brinker International Breast Cancer Award for Basic Science from the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 1992. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II named him an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to international breast cancer research.
The Department of Defense grant is part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, which administers funds for peer-reviewed research directed towards specific diseases and supports research that positively affects the health and well-being of all Americans.
Temple University Hospital Lung Center Awarded JCAHO Certification;
Among First in the Nation to Earn Gold Seal of Approval in Lung Volume Reduction Surgery
The Lung Center of Temple University Hospital (TUH) has received national certification from the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) as a Center for Lung Volume Reduction Surgery (LVRS). TUH is the first hospital in the City of Philadelphia, and among the first academic hospitals in the nation, to receive the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for LVRS.
"We are proud to be one of the first centers in the nation to be designated with this disease-specific care certification," said Gerard J. Criner, MD, Director of the Division of Pulmonology & Critical Care Medicine at Temple University Hospital. "This certification formally recognizes the capabilities of the Temple Lung Center and provides a fine example of the quality of care Philadelphia residents can expect, regardless of the complexity of their disease."
Joint Commission certification means a program complies with the highest national standards for safety and quality of care. To earn this distinction, Temple’s LVRS program underwent an extensive review of patient cases; compliance with professional standards; an assessment of caregivers’ qualifications; and interviews with staff, patients, and families.
The Temple Lung Center is at the forefront of new emphysema treatments. The east coast’s top recruiter for the National Emphysema Treatment Trial that studied LVRS, the Lung Center is also an active clinical site for the National Heart Lung Blood Institute’s COPD Clinical Research Network and the Pennsylvania Study of COPD Exacerbations. The Temple Lung Center is nationally renown for its superior clinical outcomes, especially in the specialized areas of mechanical ventilation, pulmonary fibrosis, COPD and respiratory failure. Most recently, the Temple Lung Center was ranked among the nation’s best respiratory-disease programs in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report ranking of America's best hospitals.