“It is far more important to know what person has the disease than what disease the person has.” – Hippocrates

This quote from the “father of medicine” dating back more than 2,300 years is apropos for cancer diagnosis and treatment today. Cancer is a very personal disease. Many are forever changed, often in very personal ways, by an experience with cancer and its impact – of both tumor and treatment.

For me, the fight against cancer became really personal a decade ago. Oh, I had always pictured in my mind “The Patient” who would ultimately benefit from my work. But as passionate as I had been about what I was doing, it wasn’t until “The Patient” became my own father that I felt it on a personal level. Today, my father is one of 12 million Americans who are cancer survivors, and for that – and for the new perspective his experience offers my work – I am very grateful.

At the biologic level, cancers are also very personal. Cancer cells are your own cells, turned against you by genetic abnormalities, and no two tumors are exactly alike. For decades, we’ve been unable to take advantage of that difference in our treatments. We were left to play the odds, if you will, by choosing a treatment for one person based on how large groups of people responded in clinical trials. Now, decades of research and the sequencing of the human genome are enabling us to do things differently – to take advantage of what we know about the genetics of cancer and apply that knowledge to the individual, so that the treatments used are the most effective and least harmful to each patient based on that individual’s own tumor.

This approach is known as “personalized medicine,” and it is gaining momentum in academic medical centers across the country. While it is being explored for many diseases, it is perhaps most evident so far in cancer care. For instance, every woman diagnosed with breast cancer has her tumor tested for expression of a molecule called HER-2/neu. If her tumor is positive, she is a candidate for Herceptin, which blocks HER-2/neu; if it is negative, she is offered another treatment. Similar genetic “profiles” are being identified to “personalize” therapy for lung cancers, melanomas, lymphomas and others.

In the future, we want to be able to analyze every tumor for its specific genetic alterations, and then choose the right treatment based on that knowledge. For that to become routine, we must discover more genetic drivers, develop efficient and scalable ways to screen for them, and have more drugs available that will be effective on tumors with specific genetic make-ups. We also want to use genetic insights to make a difference across what we call the entire continuum: from prevention through early detection, targeted treatment and survivorship care.

In this issue of Momentum, you’ll read about several exciting new initiatives that are creating what is perhaps a unique environment in which this work can flourish. You’ll meet three of our newest faculty recruits – Drs. Stephen Fesik, William Pao and Debra Friedman – and learn about their work in drug discovery, personalized oncology and survivorship research and care. The expertise and energy they bring, combined with the infrastructure and talent already in place, positions us to lead the way in both development and delivery of personalized cancer prevention, detection, treatment and survivorship care. And, as always, you’ll meet interesting survivors whose stories inspire us and remind us that cancer is always personal.

Sincerely,