Fox Chase Cancer Center News

PHILADELPHIA, PA (May 14, 2014)—Last fall, Trustee Lewis Katz, CST '63, surprised the Temple community by announcing a $25 million commitment to the university—the largest single pledge in Temple's history.

Now Katz has announced where the funds are going: to support the educational and research mission of Temple's School of Medicine. In recognition of Katz's commitment and his lifetime of efforts on behalf of the university, Temple's Board of Trustees will name the university's School of Medicine for Katz.

(Philadelphia, PA, April 30, 2014) – Fifty-eight (58) Temple physicians have been named to Philadelphia magazine’s “Top Doctors” list for 2014.  Physicians on the list were nominated by their professional peers, and practice at Temple University Hospital, Fox Chase Cancer Center and Jeanes Hospital.

Philadelphia, PA (April 29, 2014)—Novartis announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Zykadia™ (ceritinib, previously known as LDK378) for the treatment of patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have progressed on or are intolerant to crizotinib. The approval of Zykadia addresses an unmet medical need for patients with this type of lung cancer who have progressed on prior therapy.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (April 22, 2014)—Fox Chase Cancer Center, in partnership with its Board of Associates, will be hosting the inaugural In Vino Vita Benefit and Wine Auction on Thursday, May 15, 2014 at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia (Ten Avenue of the Arts). The event, which will raise money for leading edge research and patient care at Fox Chase, offers attendees the opportunity to participate in an elegant and festive live auction, accompanied by premiere food and cocktails.

SAN DIEGO, CA (April 8, 2014)—A quartet of proteins that play critical roles in cell replication, cell death, and DNA repair could lead to better targets for therapy against treatment-resistant head-and-neck squamous cell cancers.

SAN DIEGO, CA (April 8, 2014)—By incapacitating the activities of a protein that guides other proteins to fold into a stable shapes, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers shut off the spigot for two proteases that help ovarian cancer cells chew their way out of the tissue they grow in and dig in at new locations.  

SAN DIEGO, CA (April 7, 2014)—Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center have unearthed new clues about how pregnancy reduces women's risk of developing breast cancer. The research will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2014.

Taking a detailed look at the genetic material of women who had and had not given birth, the researchers noted differences in elements related to key processes that, when they go awry, can increase the risk of developing cancer.

SAN DIEGO, CA (April 7, 2014)—Epithelial ovarian cancer is often referred to as a silent killer: Advanced-stage disease has a low survival rate, and in a vast majority of patients, the disease has already spread to other organs at the time of diagnosis because the symptoms are difficult to identify. Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers who are investigating the biological mechanisms behind metastatic epithelial ovarian cancer recently found that an enzyme called focal adhesive kinase (FAK) can play a critical—and previously unstudied—role in the growth and spread of the disease.