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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dwight martin who wrote (16237)	3/2/1998 7:44:00 PM
From: Arthur Radley	Respond to of 32384

It is very encouraging news on melanoma. A good friend of mine just found out that his son(college age) has melanoma and is being treated here at MD Anderson.

To: dwight martin who wrote (16237)	3/3/1998 10:07:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Here's more on the Melanoma Vaccine: Vaccines For Melanoma On The Horizon NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Two different experimental cancer vaccines being developed as treatments for the deadly skin cancer melanoma have shown promise in a small number of patients. Both vaccines, described in papers in the March issue of Nature Medicine, are designed to stimulate a patient's own immune responses. A team from the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, led by Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg developed and tested a synthetic peptide vaccine for melanoma based on a tumor marker (the gp100 melanoma-associated antigen) found on the surface of the malignant cells. They report that 91% of 31 patients with metastatic melanoma were successfully immunized with the vaccine, and it resulted in more white cells being attracted to tumor sites. Tumors in skin, lung, soft tissues, liver, brain and lymph nodes shrank in 42% of patients treated with a combination of the experimental vaccine and the cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2). Tumors at these sites have traditionally been unresponsive to IL-2 therapy. This combined approach produced response rates significantly higher than that with either agent alone. Rosenberg's group says these findings represent "...the first time that a self-peptide... has provided a consistent and powerful means of immunizing patients to generate lymphocyte precursors against growing tumor." This approach, they add, could also be used for other cancers such as those of the breast, prostate, and ovary. Meanwhile, Dr. Dirk Schadendorf from the University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany, has taken a different approach to creating a vaccine against melanoma. He and his colleagues took dendritic cells (cells that present antigens to special white cells, stimulating an immune response) from melanoma patients and inserted a "cocktail" of antigens from the patient's own tumor. They immunized 16 advanced melanoma patients with the experimental vaccine, injecting the vaccine directly into the patient's lymph nodes. Vaccination was well-tolerated and produced an immune response in all patients and a clinical response in 5 of the patients. Two of the patients had a complete response that lasted more than 12 months. In an editorial accompanying the two studies, Drs. John M. Timmerman and Ronald Levy of Stanford University School of Medicine in California call the clinical responses seen with both vaccines "exceptional," adding that the dendritic-based vaccine may be "...immediately applicable.." to a variety of human cancers. "Carefully controlled clinical trials will be required to determine how best to apply the tools now at hand for inducing therapeutic anti-tumor immunity," Timmerman and Levy conclude. SOURCE: Nature Medicine (1998;4:269-270, 321-332)

To: dwight martin who wrote (16237)	3/3/1998 10:33:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Here's what ABC had to say: ABCNEWS.com March 2 - Instead of the usual artillery against cancer-chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments-World News Tonight's Ned Potter reports that researchers are now trying a new approach, a vaccine that activates the body's own defenses. In the March issue of Nature Medicine, released today, medical experts describe a promising new vaccine to treat metastatic melanoma-advanced skin cancer-one of the deadliest types of cancer. In 31 patients tested, researchers noted that 42 percent saw tumor shrinkage. In a few cases, the tumors withered away. "This approach of using the immune system by developing things like cancer vaccines represents, I think, the best hope we have for another weapon in this war against cancer," says Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute. William Watsloff, among the melanoma patients testing the new vaccine, has already seen some of his many tumors wither away. Pointing to an area on his back where he used to have a palm-sized lesion, he says it's now "just about gone." Recognizing the Bad Guy The problem with cancer cells is that deadly as they may be, the immune system does not really recognize them as foreign invaders. In search of a way to change that, the cancer researchers found a small fragment of a protein-called a peptide-that exists on a cancer cell. In the lab, they alter the peptide's chemical makeup just enough so that when they inject it into the body, the immune system immediately sees it as foreign-and attacks it. Here's the payoff: Having destroyed that intruder, the immune system is now primed to attack anything that even looks like the intruder-namely, the cancer itself. "And in that way," Rosenberg says, "the exquisite specificity of the immune system can allow it to attack the cancer tissue without affecting normal tissues." While acknowledging that this latest research shows promise, cancer experts agree that there's still much more to be done. But they're hopeful this new approach won't just stop at skin cancer, that other vaccines will be targeted against other types of cancer.

To: dwight martin who wrote (16237)	3/3/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Here's what AP had to say: The Associated Press N E W Y O R K, March 3 - A pair of vaccines intended to make the body attack the deadly skin cancer melanoma are showing early promise, researchers say, including the shrinking of tumors in some patients. All patients tested had advanced cancer. Researchers cautioned that it was too early to know whether the vaccine therapy will help patients live longer. The cancer strikes about 42,000 Americans a year, killing 7,300. Sun exposure is the main cause, and the most at risk are people who had even one bad sunburn as a child. Melanomas often start as small, mole-like growths that increase in size, change color, become ulcerated and bleed easily from slight injury. Malignant melanoma can spread to other parts of the body quickly, but when caught early is highly curable. Still, up to 30 percent of early- to intermediate-stage patients will suffer a recurrence in a few years because surgery missed tiny cells waiting to grow into new, even deadlier tumors. Melanoma cases have risen dramatically in the past 25 years. Treat Rather Than Prevent Melanoma vaccines-to treat the disease rather than prevent it-have long been tried in patients, and some past studies have reported that they prolong life. The new work is reported in this month's issue of the journal Nature Medicine. One study was done by Dr. Steven Rosenberg and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute. Their vaccine used a modified bit of protein the immune system can recognize on cancer cells. They gave the vaccine plus the drug interleukin-2 and documented a response by the immune system. In addition, 13 of 31 patients showed at least a partial tumor shrinkage in the lung, skin or elsewhere. In seven cases that lasted two to six months; the effect continues in the other cases. In the other study, researchers from Germany and Switzerland said their vaccine shrank or eliminated tumors in five of 16 patients. Two of these patients have been free of melanoma for 18 months so far, said Dr. Dirk Schadendorf of the University of Heidelberg in Germany.