When President Barack Obama called for a national moon shot to end cancer, the MD Anderson community and our patients cheered. For nearly 75 years, cancer has been our priority, and we are heartened to see it elevated to a true national priority.
Annual Report 2015 : Prevention
Let’s protect ourselves against HPV-related cancers with the ‘cancer vaccine’
Associate professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine Kathleen Schmeler. Photo: Wyatt McSpadden
Kathleen Schmeler, M.D., vividly remembers the day a chance encounter on a flight to Amsterdam changed her life.
“The man sitting next to me happened to be reading the same novel I was, so we struck up a conversation,” says Schmeler, who at the time was a mechanical engineer with Procter & Gamble. “As it turned out, he was a colon cancer researcher and doctor in the Netherlands.”
Schmeler, who had always harbored an interest in medicine, chatted with her seatmate for six hours. The conversation led to a job offer.
“When we landed,” she says, “I called my parents to let them know I was quitting my job and moving to Amsterdam to work for a scientist doing cancer research.”
Twenty years later, Schmeler is an associate professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine and an impassioned advocate for women’s health. She’s on a mission to educate women — and men — about a vaccine that blocks transmission of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes 99% of cervical cancer. The virus also is linked to cancers affecting the middle throat and genital areas.
The HPV vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006, and has the power to prevent all of these.
To the disappointment of Schmeler and others in health care, it’s been slow to gain wide acceptance.
“It’s disheartening,” Schmeler says. “We have to do a better job of getting it out there. It’s been slow, but we’re making strides.”
The Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) awarded MD Anderson a $1.4 million grant to increase cervical cancer screenings and preventive treatments for underserved women along the Texas-Mexico border. CPRIT provides state funding for cancer research, prevention and product development programs. MD Anderson’s efforts target Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Starr counties, where the cervical cancer rate is 30% higher than anywhere else in the state, and 70% of the population is uninsured.
Last year, MD Anderson expanded its ambitious Moon Shots Program to include HPV-related cancers. Co-led by Schmeler, the moon shot’s goals include improving access and vaccination rates, developing HPV-related cancer screenings for men, developing targeted drugs that attack HPV-related cancers directly, and developing immunotherapies that rally the immune system to fight the virus.
“The moon shot has spurred us to organize our efforts and move our work benefiting patients to the next level. It’s not acceptable to make small, incremental improvements,” Schmeler says. “We must do something big and innovative on their behalf.”
Cervical cancer is the 14th most common cancer in the United States. Yet in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean, it’s one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in women.
To bridge this gap, Schmeler and colleagues run the Central America Oncology Education Program, or CONEP. The program brings gynecologists from MD Anderson and other institutions to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama, where they make patient rounds and train local doctors. Since CONEP’s inception in 2009, more than 100 Central American medical residents and faculty have participated in each of the visits. The program recently expanded to Mozambique in Southeast Africa.
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In the face of cancer
It’s a phrase that describes our patients, who, faced with a disease that is unpredictable and unforgiving, remain strong and determined.
It describes our doctors, researchers, educators and staff, who are relentless in their drive to stop a plague that robs us all of friends, family and loved ones.
He took on the mystery of metastasis. Now he’s taking on brain cancer.
Few scientists have devoted as much of their career to understanding how cancer spreads as Isaiah Fidler, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Graduating to big things before returning to MD Anderson
When Joya Chandra, Ph.D., joined the faculty of MD Anderson’s pediatrics department in 2002, she felt an immediate kinship with the researchers, clinicians and, especially, with the students.
Where rivers of research and clinical data converge into one pool
A simple yet unprecedented goal drives the big data efforts of MD Anderson’s Moon Shots Program: to have every patient contribute to and benefit from the cancer
center’s research.
Bottom line: Converting discoveries into new treatments at a faster rate
When a clinical trial for a new breast cancer drug launched recently, researchers estimated it would take at least two years to enroll the 20 patients needed to make the trial a success. However, within four months, half the patients had already enrolled — and the drug worked for all 10.
Outsmarting cancer with genetic testing
Teresa Hall’s visit to a gastroenterologist three years ago wasn’t the first time she’d sought help for troubling symptoms.
Are you at high risk for pancreatic cancer?
A new clinic to identify and monitor those at high risk for developing pancreatic cancer continues to expand after opening last year.
We’re creating partnerships to detect a deadly cancer earlier
Building on MD Anderson research, a new company named Codiak Biosciences has formed to create therapeutic and diagnostic products using exosomes — small parts of cells that break away and float around the body.
Breast cancer screening guidelines aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution
It’s clear that breast cancer screenings save lives. But exactly when women at average risk of developing breast cancer should begin screening is much less clear.
