2008 Woodie Awards
Immunotherapy cancer trial observed in Mobile
Devi Sampat
Senior Reporter
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News
A team of University of South Alabama College of Medicine researchers, Dr. Joseph H. Coggin, Jim Rohrer and Adel Barsoum from immunology and microbiology, began making basic observations for a new clinical trial evaluating the use of immunotherapy in the treatment of breast cancer.
The FDA-monitored trial is now open in Mobile and was initiated by the USA College of Medicine and VRI, Inc. in March 2008. The trial is now the first cancer trial in the history of Mobile that evaluates technology discovered at South Alabama.
Specialists of the study are now enrolling volunteer patients whose breast cancers have not responded to conventional surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy.
"The official announcement of our enrolling patients in the trial will start appearing in local and regional news media over the weekend, so we haven't gotten a whole lot of response yet except for individuals who knew we were going to be doing the trial and who expressed interest months ago," Dr. James Rohrer said. "We will be using 27 advanced breast cancer patients in the trial."
Research for the study began more than two decades ago by scientists in the department of microbiology and immunology at USA and was funded during the past 20 years by both the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
"This was all the combination of Drs. Joseph H. Coggin Jr., James W. Rohrer and Adel L. Barsoum and came to be doable with the help of Dr. Paul Schwarzenberger, a very skilled and experienced oncologist at the Southern Cancer Center, here, in Mobile," Rohrer, an immunobiologist, said. "It was also doable because of funding by the venture capital group VRI, Inc."
The science behind the study focuses specifically on using immunotherapy in the treatment of disseminated, malignant breast carcinomas that have not responded to available standard therapies. The technology being used employs vaccine immunotherapy with a cancer-specific recombinant protein. This protein has been found and detected in all breast cancers tested.
The FDA-monitored trial is now open in Mobile and was initiated by the USA College of Medicine and VRI, Inc. in March 2008. The trial is now the first cancer trial in the history of Mobile that evaluates technology discovered at South Alabama.
Specialists of the study are now enrolling volunteer patients whose breast cancers have not responded to conventional surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy.
"The official announcement of our enrolling patients in the trial will start appearing in local and regional news media over the weekend, so we haven't gotten a whole lot of response yet except for individuals who knew we were going to be doing the trial and who expressed interest months ago," Dr. James Rohrer said. "We will be using 27 advanced breast cancer patients in the trial."
Research for the study began more than two decades ago by scientists in the department of microbiology and immunology at USA and was funded during the past 20 years by both the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
"This was all the combination of Drs. Joseph H. Coggin Jr., James W. Rohrer and Adel L. Barsoum and came to be doable with the help of Dr. Paul Schwarzenberger, a very skilled and experienced oncologist at the Southern Cancer Center, here, in Mobile," Rohrer, an immunobiologist, said. "It was also doable because of funding by the venture capital group VRI, Inc."
The science behind the study focuses specifically on using immunotherapy in the treatment of disseminated, malignant breast carcinomas that have not responded to available standard therapies. The technology being used employs vaccine immunotherapy with a cancer-specific recombinant protein. This protein has been found and detected in all breast cancers tested.
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