Cancer Genomics and Biology 2015 – Meeting Report

ABSTRACT

The Cancer Genomics and Biology 2015 meeting embodied a three way collaboration among colleagues from the Global Cancer Genomics Consortium (GCGC), the Unifaith Cancer Institute China and Jiujiang University of China. The meeting marks the fifth and the last meeting of GCGC, which was formed in 2010. Previous four GCGC meetings have been held at the Tata Memorial Center- Mumbai, Institute of Molecular Medicine-Lisbon, and Graduate Medical School Kyoto University-Kyoto. In contrast to the genomic themes of the previous meetings, the 2015 conference theme was at the interface of laboratory and translation research and emerging therapeutics as reflected in the shared interests of all three collaborative entities – Cancer Genomics and Biology 2015. This year’s conference was co-organized by the Jiujiang University at the Run Run Shaw building, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang City, China, on November 13 and 14, 2015. The conference attracted over 174 participants with 13 platform presentations. Scientific sessions included a plenary and five platform scientific sessions with themes ranging from biomarkers, stem cells and markers of the tumor microenvironment, proteomics and epigenetics, big data, to hormone and expression profiles. The meeting concluded with closing remarks by conference co-chairs emphasizing with the need to broaden membership across the globe, establishing priorities, and redrafting a white paper to launch a new consortium.

oncoscience impact factor Misha Blagosklonny

Mikhail (Misha) V. Blagosklonny graduated with an MD and PhD from First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Mikhail V. Blagosklonny has then immigrated to the United States, where he received the prestigious Fogarty Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. During his fellowship in Leonard Neckers’ lab at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), he was a co-author of 18 publications on various biomedical themes, including targeting HSP90, p53, Bcl2, Erb2, and Raf-1. He also was the last author for a clinical phase I/II trial article. 

After authoring seven papers during a brief yet productive senior research fellowship in the El-Deiry Cancer Research Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Blagosklonny returned to NCI to work with Tito Fojo. Together, they published 26 papers. Moreover, Dr. Blagosklonny published many of experimental research papers and theoretical papers as sole author. The abovementioned sole-author articles discussed two crucial topics. The first of these discussed selectively killing cancer cells with deregulated cell cycle or drug resistance via verifying their resistance. The outcomes and underlying notion were so revolutionary that they were incorrectly cited by other scientists as “reversal of resistance,” even though the publication was titled, “Exploiting of drug resistance instead of its reversal.” One big supporter of this concept was the world-famous scientist Arthur Pardee, with whom Dr. Blagosklonny co-authored a joint publication in 2001.

The second theme throughout Dr. Blagosklonny’s sole-author articles is a research method to develop knowledge by bringing several facts together from seemingly irrelevant areas. This results in new notions with testable forecasts, which in turn can be “tested” via analyzing the literature further. Likewise, the concept was co-authored by Arthur Pardee in a 2002 article in Nature. The first success of the new research methodology was the description of the feedback regulation of p53, as confirmed by the discovery of mdm2/p53 loop; and the explanation why mutant p53 is always overexpressed, published in 1997. The most important result revealed by Dr. Blagosklonny’s research methodology is the hyperfunction (or quasi-programmed) theory of aging and the revelation of rapamycin as an exclusively well-tolerated anti-aging drug, published in 2006. As mentioned in Scientific American, Michael Hall, who discovered mTOR in 1991, gives Dr. Blagosklonny credit for “connecting dots that others can’t even see.”

In 2002, Dr. Blagosklonny became associate professor of medicine at New York Medical College. He agreed to accept responsibilities as a senior scientist at Ordway Research Institute in Albany, New York, in 2005, before receiving another position at Roswell Park Cancer Institute as professor of oncology in 2009.

Since coming to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2009, Dr. Blagosklonny has studied the prevention of cancer (an age-related disease) via stopping organism aging - in other words, “preventing cancer via staying young.” His laboratory closely worked together with Andrei Gudkov’s and conducted research on the suppression of cellular senescence, namely suppression of cellular conversion from healthy quiescence to permanent senescence. This led to the discovery of additional anti-aging medicines beyond rapamycin. The cell culture studies were complemented by studies in mice, including several models like normal and aging mice, p53-deficient mice, and mice on a high-fat diet.

Dr. Blagosklonny has also published extensively on the stoppage of cellular senescence via rapamycin and other mTOR inhibitors, life extension and cancer stoppage in mice, and combinations of anti-aging medicines to be taken by humans. A rapamycin-based combination of seven clinically available medications has been named the “Koschei Formula” and is now used for the treatment of aging in patients at the Alan Green Clinic in Little Neck, New York. 

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