MEDICINE Several groups, including Bert Vogelstein’s group, sequence nearly all the genes of multple samples of breast, colon, ovarian and brain cancers.
MEDICINE Breast cancer mortality decreases by nearly twenty five percent (in comparison to 1990). The decrease is attributed to a combination of screening (mammography) and chemotherapy.
MEDICINE Charles Sawyers and others study CML patients who have become resistant to Gleevec. They use this knowledge to create second generation drugs against Gleevec-resistant CML.
CANCER BIOLOGY Human genome project is completed: the sequence of all genes in the human chromosome (from one individual) is established.
CANCER BIOLOGY Werner Bezwoda admits to fraud, and resigns. It is later clear that his “trials” showing dramatic survival benefits with high dose chemo and transplants were all made up.
CANCER BIOLOGY Brian Druker, Charles Sawyers and others use Gleevec in clinical trials to reveal striking responses and remissions in CML.
CANCER BIOLOGY In three clinical trials, Herceptin is found to increase survival strikingly in women with metastatic breast cancer.
POLITICS Jimmy – Einar Gustafson -- returns to Dana Farber after fifty years.
PREVENTION Facing a barrage of tort suits, cigarette makers agree to the Master Settlement Agreement. The MSA restricts advertising, and redirects a part of cigarette revenues to the State to pay for the health care of tobacco victims.
CANCER BIOLOGY John Bailar revisits his article from 1987 to assess progress on the War on Cancer. Overall age-adjusted mortality for cancer has remained unchanged since 1987, but for certain cancers, survival benefits are apparent. Lung cancer deaths override all other gains.
CANCER BIOLOGY Massive expansion of high dose chemotherapy and transplant for breast cancer. South African researcher Werner Bezwoda, in Johanesburg, claims powerful survival benefits with this protocol.
CANCER BIOLOGY Aided by activists, Genentech launches pivotal trials of Herceptin in mestatatic breast cancer.
CANCER BIOLOGY Marti Nelson dies in California of metastatic breast cancer, unable to receive Herceptin therapy because the drug is still in experimental trials.
CANCER BIOLOGY Mike Stratton discovers the BRCA-2 gene that increases risk for breast cancer.
POLITICS Mary Lasker dies in Connecticut.
CANCER BIOLOGY Breast cancer activists congregate on Genentech’s campus to protest the denial of Herceptin to patients under a “compassionate use” plan.
CANCER BIOLOGY In Toronto, John Dick identifies rare cells in leukemias that can regenerate the tumor. He labels them "leukemia stem cells".
CANCER BIOLOGY Early trials of Herceptin show promising responses in a small number of women with Her-2 amplified cancers.
CANCER BIOLOGY Barbara Bradfield completes Herceptin therapy. She will become the iconic long-term survivor of breast cancer treated with Herceptin therapy.
CANCER BIOLOGY Brian Druker shows that one kinase inhibitor, eventually called Gleevec, selectively kills CML cells. Gleevec, like Herceptin and retinoic acid, joins a small group of cancer-targeted drugs.
CANCER BIOLOGY Mark Hiepler wins a landmark lawsuit against an HMO that had denied his sister a transplant for breast cancer (the HMO cited lack of evidence). The initial award is $89 million.
CANCER BIOLOGY Trials of high dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant for breast cancer are finished. After nearly a decade of testing, the protocol shows no benefit for breast cancer survival.
CANCER BIOLOGY Genentech scientists create an antibody against Her-2. It is later called Herceptin.
CANCER BIOLOGY Mary Claire-King identifies a genetic region that confers increased risk for breast cancer. This is eventually found to be BRCA1
CANCER BIOLOGY Dennis Slamon, and Axel Ullrich, identifies Her-2 and its amplification in breast cancers.
CANCER BIOLOGY Alex Matter and Nick Lydon, at Ciba Geigy (eventually Novartis) create chemicals that inhibit kinase enzymes. Among these is an inhibitor of the Bcr-abl gene.
CULTURE AIDS activists organize themselves to protest the FDA's neglect of the disease. They demand more rapid access to experimental drugs.
CANCER BIOLOGY Bert Vogelstein proposes that cancer cells are created as the result of multiple genetic alterations.
CANCER BIOLOGY Trials of retinoic acid in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia show striking responses.
MEDICINE John Bailar publishes Progess Against Cancer, claiming that cancer specific mortality in the United States has remained largely unchanged since the 1970s.
CANCER BIOLOGY Thad Dryja isolates the Retinoblastoma gene, the first tumor suppressor gene.
MEDICINE Several groups, including Luc Montagnier’s in France, identify the AIDS virus
CANCER BIOLOGY Several groups, including Axel Ullrich’s, identify the human homologue of neu – called Her-2.
CANCER BIOLOGY Australian researchers Barry Marshall and Robin Warren demonstrate that Helicobacter Pylori, a bacterium, causes stomach cancer. Treating this infection in young men and women prevent cancer.
CANCER BIOLOGY The chimeric gene identified by Janet Rowley in CML cells is found to be a fusion of the Bcr and abl gene. It is also found to be a kinase enzyme.
PREVENTION Rose Cipollone files suit against several tobacco companies arguing that they minimized the risk of cigarettes. Cipollone dies of lung cancer in 1982.
CANCER BIOLOGY Robert Weinberg, Michael Wigler, Mariano Barbacid and others isolate cancer-causing genes from cancer cells.
CANCER BIOLOGY Lakshmi Charon Padhy identifies a cancer-causing gene – neu – in neuroblastoma cancer cells.
MEDICINE First cases of AIDS is diagnosed in New York and San Francisco
MEDICINE An Italian trial run by Gianni Bonadonna shows that chemotherapy after surgery markedly increases survival in women with localized breast cancer.
MEDICINE The results of the trial NSABP trial reveal that radical mastectomy is ineffectual. There is no gain in survival compared to simple mastectomy.
CANCER BIOLOGY Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus propose that cancer-causing genes are created through the distortion of normal genes found inside cells.
CANCER BIOLOGY Several labs, including Peter Vogt’s and Steve Martin’s, identify src as the cancer-causing gene in Rous Sarcoma virus.
MEDICINE Bernard Fisher shows that Tamoxifen treatment after surgery increases survival for women with ER+ breast cancer.
CANCER BIOLOGY Ray Erikson, Art Levinson and others show that src is an enzyme that adds phosphate groups to other proteins.
MEDICINE In Indiana, Larry Einhorn uses cisplatin in combination with other drugs to cure testicular cancer.
MEDICINE The first hospice in the United States is launched at Yale/New Haven hospital.
CANCER BIOLOGY Janet Rowley, examining cells of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) discovers a chimeric gene in the leukemia cells, created by fusing chromosome 9 and chromosome 22
MEDICINE Sidney Farber dies in Boston
CULTURE The movie Exorcist is released
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