My Take on The 3rd CanLiv Hepatobiliary Research symposium on 4/5/2013

Hi,everyone,
Kim, Barbara and me attended the 3rd annual CanLiv research symposium at DC on April5. The topic is ” Harnessing Genomics-Driven Therapy for Hepatobiliary Cancers”.
Below is the summary of what I have learned from the meeting.
I asked Dr. Gores from Mayo Clinics about his opinion on what if the only FDA approved targeted agent Sorafenib ( a multiple pathways TKI) won’t work anymore and what other targeted agent will he recommend next. He said it looks like mTOR pathway agents will be the next choice. He also acknowledged that it is too expensive to search and develop single pathway TKI and preferred if it can, develop multiple pathway TKIs.
From him, I also learned that subsets of patients can been benefited from Sorafenib and other TKIs that even though the research article is negative about the drug as a whole for the patient population in the study. This is also concur by another researcher in the meeting.
I asked Dr.jack Wands,of the Brown university/Rhode Island Hospital liver research center who specialized in hepatocellular carcinoma genomics research as well as on immunotherapy , He indicated that as a patient, I should look into both the immunotherapy and using the genomics-driven therapy to maximize my chance of survival. The immunotherapy such as adoptive cell therapy and vaccines research have come a long way but has gained ground recently in cancer research. He also agreed very much with Dr Gores about the findings that the future potential benefit of the Notch genes in cancer research and development.
I asked Dr. Daniel Catenacci ,he is currently the principle investigator for 14 clinical trials from University of Chicago ,about his opinion maintenance chemotherapy since he had mentioned it casually on one of his published research article. He indicated he does not have any opinion on it since not a lot of research had been done on that subject, but he thinks it may be of benefit to some patient. He is very friendly to talk to and has shown great interest in individuals like me who is relatively beat the odds and still survive ; he will be a great researcher and clinician for years to come.
I ask Dr. Kiguchi from University of Texas at Austin,about the comparison between DCA and DCM, the suspected chemical agent that caused cholangiocarcinoma in a printing company in Japan recently; one is dichloro -acetic acid(DCA) and the other one is dichloromethane(DCM), what I am trying to do is to find out whether these two compounds are related since both carried carbon and 2 chloride atoms,[DCA=C2H2cl2O2 and DCM=CH2cl2] And they both can be used as caustic agents ; he said he did not know the answer.
To be continued.
God bless