Turning Fact into Fiction™
April 10, 2013

DeGregorio Family Foundation Welcomes New Scientific Advisors.

 

DeGregorio Family Foundation is pleased to welcome two distinguished young researchers to our Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Adam Bass and Dr. Sam Yoon.

 

Dr. Adam Bass is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and also is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. Dr. Bass obtained his undergraduate degree from Amherst College and his MD at Duke University School of Medicine. Following medical school, he completed clinical training in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and medical oncology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He subsequently pursued research training in cancer genomics and cancer biology at both the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute. During that time he developed a research interest in studying the somatic-genomic alterations in gastrointestinal cancer using new emerging genomic technologies and also studying candidate genomic alterations in the laboratory using more traditional functional biology.

 

Dr. Bass been an independent investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute since 2010 working to increase understanding of the genomics of gastrointestinal cancers, with a special interest in esophageal and gastric cancers. In addition, Dr. Bass is co chairing The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) studies into gastric and esophageal cancer, which is working to identify and catalog the genomic alterations which exist in tumors and tissues to identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities for patients with these diseases.

 

Dr. Sam S. Yoon is an Associate Attending in the Division of Gastric and Mixed Tumors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He graduated from Harvard University and received his MD from the University of California at San Diego. He completed his residency in general surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2001 and his fellowship in surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2003. He was an Associate Professor of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining the staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2012.

 

Dr. Yoon specializes in treating patients with gastroesophageal cancer and sarcoma. He has been the principal investigator of several clinical trials examining treatment strategies. His primary research interests are in tumor angiogenesis and the use of targeted biological agents in combination with radiation therapy. He runs an NCI-funded research laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering which translates new research discoveries into clinical use, and he has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Annals of Surgery, Nature Medicine, and Cancer Cell.

 

DeGregorio Family Foundation is continually seeking the leading researchers and clinicians working in the field of gastroesophageal oncology to serve as members of our Scientific Advisory Board, as part of our effort to find and encourage cutting-edge collaborative research into treatments and possible cures.


You're Invited!
Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

On the evening of Thursday, October 3rd, 2013, DeGregorio Family Foundation will be holding our annual event at the New York Stock Exchange, a fabulous evening of food, friends and fundraising held on the trading floor at this historic location - all to benefit the work and mission of The DeGregorio Family Foundation. We hope that you'll join us in celebrating the fifth fantastic year of this event and all of the foundation's accomplishments!

 

The DeGregorio Family Foundation for Gastric and Esophageal Cancer seeks to promote and facilitate education and collaborative research on the causes, early diagnosis, and treatment of gastric and esophageal cancer. Our goal is to turn the fact that these cancers are the second-largest cause of cancer deaths worldwide into fiction - look for all the details on this event on our website: www.degregorio.org - COMING SOON! 


GO TEAM DeGREGORIO!
 
On Sunday, March 17th, 2013, Team DeGregorio took over the streets of New York City as part of the New York Road Runners New York City Half Marathon!
 

Our fantastic team of runners: Robert Okun, Margo LaStrange, Christine Armstrong, Pat Armstrong, Ellen Shapira, Michelle Thomas, Rick Feinstein, Gabbie Feinstein, Mary Wagher, Mike Costello, Emily Carroll, Nick Donahue, Lindsay Wagner, and Sean James raised more than $20,000 to support stomach and esophageal cancer research!

 

You can support Team DeGregorio without putting on your running shoes (or without even getting off the couch!) - just visit our website,  www.degregorio.org, and click to make a donation to the foundation in support of our mission. Social media tools are also great ways to increase awareness about the DeGregorio Family Foundation and the work that you are helping to support. Sharing a link to an article on our website, "liking" us on Facebook, or sending a "tweet" of support for Team DeGregorio helps to spread the word about the important research that we are funding!

Two Journals Publish Papers on DeGregorio Funded Research 

 

The DeGregorio Family Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of the paper reporting on the findings of our funded research, 'Exome and whole-genome sequencing of esophageal adenocarcinoma identifies recurrent driver events and mutational complexity' in the Journal of Nature Genetics on March 24, 2013. The study was led by Dr. Adam Bass of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School who has also recently been named to the Scientific Advisory Board of DeGregorio Family Foundation.

 

In July 2012, "Gastrointestinal Adenocarcinomas of the Esophagus, Stomach, and Colon Exhibit Distinct Patterns of Genome Instability and Oncogenesis," an article co-authored by Dr. Adam Bass of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School on the findings of the research project which was funded by DeGregorio Family Foundation, appeared in Cancer Research, the journal of the American Association of Cancer Research.

 

Lynn DeGregorio, President of DeGregorio Family Foundation, was pleased by both the quality of the findings, which point to many opportunities for targeted interventions and the inclusion in two prestigious publications saying that she "hopes will lead to increased awareness of the importance of funding research that can lead to new avenues of study and innovative investigation."

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