By Tamas Ordog, LRG Research Team, Martin Zörnig and Yujiro Hayashi Dr. Tamas Ordog Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) represent a substantial proportion of human bone and soft tissue sarcomas.1 GIST are thought [...]
The time it takes between the appearance of first symptoms of a rare disease and when the correct diagnosis is given, is often years if not decades instead of days or weeks like it is [...]
A recent article in the Clinical Cancer Research Journal discussed a new drug, Ponatinib, that shows therapeutic potential for drug-resistant KIT mutations in GIST.
Dr. Sosipatros Boikos, a graduate of University of Crete in Greece, very early and while he was a first year medical student, developed an interest in cancer genetics. After graduating from medical school, he came to the National Institutes of Health as a Visiting Research Fellow to work on the genetics of Wildtype gastrointestinal stromal tumors—those GIST tumors without a KIT or PDGFRA mutation—under the supervision of Dr. Constantine Stratakis, the researcher who identified Carney-Stratakis Syndrome.
Adrian Mariño-Enriquez explains the significance of a recently published study that will have a big impact on GIST research. Keep reading to learn the critical role of CDC37 in GIST tumors.
Representatives from the Life Raft Group recently traveled to Prague, Czech Republic to attend the annual Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS) meeting. CTOS is an international group comprised of physicians and scientists with a primary interest in the tumors of connective tissues.
By Drs. Sebastian Bauer, West German Cancer Center, University of Essen, Germany and Jonathan Fletcher, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, LRG Research Team Researchers talk plainly about microGISTs, how this cancer develops and what all [...]
KIT functions in several distinct cell types. Keep reading to learn about KIT signaling and new approaches for GIST Therapy.
By Jonathan Fletcher, M.D. & Sebastian Buaer, M.D. Within the past decade, GISTs have emerged from being poorly defined, treatment-resistant tumors to a well recognized, well understood, and treatable tumor entity. Rapid advances in the understanding [...]
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York have found a rare mutation in some GIST tumors. In a series of 61 patients with wild-type GIST, they found that three of them (5%) had mutations in a gene called BRAF. This same mutation, a “V600E” mutation in exon 15 of the BRAF gene, occurs frequently in melanoma. They also found the same mutation in one of 28 GIST patients that were resistant to Gleevec.
