The Onco'Zine Brief Peter Hofland

In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Peter Hofland talks with Stephen Spellman.

Stephen Spellman is Vice President and Senior Scientific Director at Be The Match and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR).

Hofland and Spellman talk about the outcomes of a study published in Blood Advances, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. [1] The article discusses the impact of cryopreservation of hematopoietic cell grafts on overall survival (OS) and other outcomes within 1 year after hematopoietic cell transplantation.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic the National Marrow Donor Program as together with other national and international donor registries mandated the cryopreservation of hematopoietic cell grafts during the first 6 months of the pandemic because of patient and donor safety concerns. The reason was that during the early days of the pandemic, delivery of donor products after patient conditioning could not be guaranteed. This was, in part, caused by logistical complexities including travel bans, flight delays and cancellations, rerouting of couriers – as well as closed border crossings… In addition, donors were at risk of being infected with the SARS CoV-2 Virus, the virus that causes COVID-19, which, in turn, resulted in last-minute cancellations of graft collection.

To solve the pandemic-related logistical problems, the authors of the study conclude that cryopreservation should be considered a method to eliminate the potential risks with the use of fresh donor graft products or when fresh grafts are not available.

But what was the impact of cryopreservation on patients receiving hematopoietic cell transplantation compared to the effects among patients receiving fresh donor products? Was there a difference in overall survival, disease free survival, or disease recurrence? Was there a risk in Graft vs Host Disease?

In this episode of The Onco’Zine Brief Hofland and Spellman talk about this and more.

Reference
[1] Devine SM, Bo-Subait S, Kuxhausen M, Spellman SR, Bupp C, Ahn KW, Stefanski HE, Auletta JJ, Logan BR, Shaw BE. Clinical impact of cryopreservation of allogeneic hematopoietic cell grafts during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Blood Adv. 2023 Oct 10;7(19):5982-5993. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2023009786. PMID: 37036959; PMCID: PMC10580174. [Article][Pubmed]

About The Onco'Zine Brief
The Onco’Zine Brief is developed in collaboration with our online journal Onco’Zine, where you can find additional information and the latest news about cancer diagnosis and treatment, and cancer prevention.

The Onco'Zine Brief is distributed in the United States via PRX (Public Radio Exchange). In the United Kingdom and Europe, the program is distributed via UK Health Radio (UKHR). And the program can be downloaded via most podcasts and streaming media services, including iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, and iHeart Radio.

For more information about The Onco'Zine Brief or how to sponsor or support this public radio broadcast and podcast, visit to a...

In a new episode of The Onco’Zine Brief, Peter Hofland talks with Ely Benaim, MD, the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Development at SonALAsense and Mark De Souza, Ph.D, President and Chief Executive Officer of SonALAsense.

SonALAsense was founded to create hope in the face of despair with Sonodynamic Therapy (SDT), a non-invasive therapy option using SONALA-001 in combination with Insightec’s MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) to treat and eradicate deadly cancers like High-Grade Gliomas (HGG) that typically require debilitating brain surgery that often leads to tumor recurrence.

SonALAsense’s SDT uses SONALA-001, a proprietary formulation of aminolevulinic acid (ALA), to disrupt heme metabolism in tumor cells, increasing production of protoporphyrin, a heme precursor. From there, energy from focused ultrasound excites protoporphyrin molecules, which produce reactive oxygen species that destroy cancer cells.

Recently, Hasan Syed, MD, at Children’s National Hospital published a peer-reviewed paper on the first DIPG patient treated with SONALA-001 in the Journal of Neuro-Oncology; a major milestone for this deadly and understudied childhood disease. [1]

Hofland, Benaim and De Souza talk about new technologies in the treatment of difficult to treat cancers.

Reference
[1] Syed HR, Kilburn L, Fonseca A, Nazarian J, Oluigbo C, Myseros JS, Packer RJ, Keating RF. First-in-human sonodynamic therapy with ALA for pediatric diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma: a phase 1/2 study using low-intensity focused ultrasound : Technical communication. J Neurooncol. 2023 Apr;162(2):449-451. doi: 10.1007/s11060-023-04269-8. Epub 2023 Apr 12. PMID: 37046110.

About The Onco'Zine Brief
The Onco'Zine Brief is distributed in the United States via PRX (Public Radio Exchange). In the United Kingdom and Europe, the program is distributed via UK Health Radio (UKHR). And the program can be downloaded via most podcasts and streaming media services, including iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, and iHeart Radio.

For more information about The Onco'Zine Brief or how to sponsor or support this public radio broadcast and podcast, visit to download our Media Kit, visit our Patreon page, or contact the sales team.

To sign up for The Onco'Zine Newsletter (open for residents of the United States only), text the word CANCER to 66866.

The Onco’Zine Brief is made possible, in part, by Java Original Coffee and Roastmasterz by Java Original Coffee.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-onco-zine-brief--2786156/support.

In a new episode of The Onco’Zine Brief, Peter Hofland talks with Jeffery Auletta, MD is Senior Vice President, Patient Outcomes and Experience, National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP)/Be The Match®.

Be The Match® is a global leader in bone marrow transplantation. The organization conducts research to improve transplant outcomes provide support and resources for patients, and partner with a global network.

Unmet medical need
Every three or four minutes, someone in the United States is diagnosed with a hematological malignancy such as leukemia, a cancer of blood-forming tissues, including bone marrow.

For many patients, their only hope for a cure is a stem cell transplant. In the program, Hofland and Auletta talk about these unmet medical needs and about the new developments exploring the use of a standardized method of assessing measurable residual disease (MRD) before allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) in patients with leukemia and how this provides valuable insight into MRD as a predictive tool to inform HCT decisions and individualize treatment to improve outcomes.

Hofland and Auletta also talk about the importance of people to join and register with Be The Match® as a bone marrow donor to bring hope to people in need.

About The Onco'Zine Brief
The Onco'Zine Brief is distributed in the United States via PRX (Public Radio Exchange). In the United Kingdom and Europe, the program is distributed via UK Health Radio (UKHR). And the program can be downloaded via most podcasts and streaming media services, including iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, and iHeart Radio.

For more information about The Onco'Zine Brief or how to sponsor or support this public radio broadcast and podcast, visit to download our Media Kit, visit our Patreon page, or contact the sales team.

To sign up for The Onco'Zine Newsletter (open for residents of the United States only), text the word CANCER to 66866.

The Onco’Zine Brief is made possible, in part, by Java Original Coffee and Roastmasterz by Java Original Coffee.


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-onco-zine-brief--2786156/support.

 In a new episode of The Onco'Zine Brief, Peter Hofland talks with David M. Cognetti, MD, a Professor and Chair in the Department Head and Neck Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Hofland and Cognetti talk about head and neck cancer and a novel treatment approach called Photoimmunotherapy.

Head and Neck Cancer
According to the American Cancer Society, Head and neck cancer accounts for about 4% of all cancers in the United States. In the United States in 2023, an estimated 67,000 people will be diagnosed with head and neck cancer and about 15,000 patients are expected to die of the disease.

Today, many cancers of the head and neck can be cured, especially if they are found early. And while eliminating the cancer is the primary goal of treatment, preserving the function of the nearby nerves, organs, and tissues is also very important.

Beyond Current Treatment
Photoimmunotherapy is a recently developed hybrid cancer therapy to treat diseases by linking specific antibodies with photosensitizers to form photoimmunoconjugates.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy have dominated the treatment of oncologic. These therapies aim to eradicate cancer cells but, unfortunately, do that at the expense of normal, or healthy cells/ In turn, this can lead to severe and sometimes lethal side-effects.

Overall, the success of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy is measured by what we call a ‘therapeutic index.’

This ‘therapeutic index’ compares the potential benefits of treatment to the potential risks associated with treatment.

Unfortunately, the unintended, off-target side effects of these therapies can have profound effects on the health-related quality of life of patients.

For example, both radiation and chemotherapy sometimes preferentially kill lymphocytes much earlier than cancer cells because of the increased radiation sensitivity and high proliferation rate of lymphocytes, potentially leading to dose-limiting toxicity for some chemotherapy regimens.
To find a solution, researchers have developed new therapeutic strategies. And while these therapies have created an exciting new direction for the treatment of cancer therapy, there remain limitation to these novel approaches.

Now, in theory, the perfect cancer therapy would both directly destroy cancer cells to minimize residual cancer cells as well as activate the local host immune response to wipe out remaining cancer cells.

And while such a therapy would be highly selective for cancer cells but have minimal or no off-target effects in the tumor microenvironment.

Photoimmunotherapy
And that’s where photoimmunotherapy comes in. Photoimmunotherapy, designed to selectively destroy target cells.

The therapy that induces direct cancer killing via immunogenic cell death, thus activating the anti-cancer immune system locally in the tumor microenvironment.

The specificity of this approach comes from the antibody that is designed to target an expressed antigen on the tumor surface and is conjugated to the photo-activating chemical.

The safety of Photoimmunotherapy is based on the fact that the antibody–photo-absorber conjugate predominantly binds to specifically targeted cancer cells and that it is only activated in areas exposed to Near-infrared light at a specific activating wavelength.

By choosing tumor-specific antigens, this therapy specifically destroys cancer cells while not or only minimally harming any adjacent normal or healthy cells, particularly tumor-infiltrating immune T cells or blood vessels. Furthermore, the photo-activating chemical is a water-soluble photo-absorbing dye without cytotoxic properties of its own.

Clinical studies have shown that this combination can enhance...

 In this episode of The Onco'Zine Brief, Peter Hofland talks with two experts about their research and the impact the outcomes from these studies may have on the treatment of patients diagnosed with cancer.

First, Hofland talks with Christopher Heery, MD.

Dr Heery is a board-certified medical oncologist with primary expertise in the translational and clinical development of immunotherapies, including, but not limited to PD-L1 inhibitors, therapeutic cancer vaccines, immune suppressor modulator, adoptive NK cells, and other therapeutics.

As the chief medical officer at Arcellx, he is responsible for medical oversight, clinical strategy, medical affairs, and regulatory strategy for the company’s pipeline of novel – investigational drug.

In the second half of the program, Hofland talks with Srdan Verstovsek, Dr Srdan Verstovsek, MD, PhD., a Medical Oncologist and Professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, about some of the developments in the treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasm, which are types of blood cancer that begin with an abnormal mutation or change, in a stem cell in the bone marrow. These change leads to an overproduction of any combination of white cells, red blood cells and platelets – and results in a number of diseases, including:
Essential Thrombocythemia (ET) Is a rare blood disease in which the bone marrow produces too many platelets;Myelofibrosis, a rare disorder in which abnormal blood cells and fibers build up in the bone marrow;Polycythemia Vera (PV) – a disease in which too many red blood cells are made in the bone marrow and, in many cases, the numbers of white blood cells and platelets are also elevated.
 In a new episode of The Onco'Zine Brief, Peter Hofland talks with David M. Cognetti, MD, a Professor and Chair in the Department Head and Neck Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Hofland and Cognetti talk about head and neck cancer and a novel treatment approach called Photoimmunotherapy.

Head and Neck Cancer
According to the American Cancer Society, Head and neck cancer accounts for about 4% of all cancers in the United States. In the United States in 2023, an estimated 67,000 people will be diagnosed with head and neck cancer and about 15,000 patients are expected to die of the disease.

Today, many cancers of the head and neck can be cured, especially if they are found early. And while eliminating the cancer is the primary goal of treatment, preserving the function of the nearby nerves, organs, and tissues is also very important.

Beyond Current Treatment
Photoimmunotherapy is a recently developed hybrid cancer therapy to treat diseases by linking specific antibodies with photosensitizers to form photoimmunoconjugates.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy have dominated the treatment of oncologic. These therapies aim to eradicate cancer cells but, unfortunately, do that at the expense of normal, or healthy cells/ In turn, this can lead to severe and sometimes lethal side-effects.

Overall, the success of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy is measured by what we call a ‘therapeutic index.’

This ‘therapeutic index’ compares the potential benefits of treatment to the potential risks associated with treatment.

Unfortunately, the unintended, off-target side effects...

Antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs are a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer. However, unlike chemotherapy, ADCs are intended to directly target and kill tumor cells while, at the same time sparing normal, healthy cells.

Antibody-drug conjugates consist of three parts:
an antibody specific to the target associated antigen,a payload (sometimes calles a warhead) designed to kill target cancer cells, anda chemical linker specifically designed to attach or link the payload to the antibody.
Today, antibody-drug conjugates have widespread treatment potential in obcology and hematology, and beyond. However, safe manufacturing of these highly potent drugs requires also requires a highly skilled capable team of experts in well-controlled manufacturing facilities.

In this episode of the Onco’Zine Brief, produced in collaboration with ADC Review | Journal of Antibody-drug Conjugates, Peter Hofland talks with Dr. Matthias Bucerius.

Dr. Bucerius is Vice President and General Manager at MilliporeSigma. He is responsible for Contract Development and Manufacturing Organsation (CDMO) business of the company, leading a fully integrated global team with Manufacturing Operations, Commercial, Marketing & Strategy, Technology & Innovation organizations.

The company is helping its clients in developing and manufacturing a variety of products, including antibody-drug conjugates.

Antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs are targeted therapies that have opened new ways in targeting diseases like cancer and hematological malignancies.

What is unique about ADCs is that they leverage the specific targetability benefits offered by antibodies and combine that with the high potency of small-molecule drugs. This combination makes these agents uniquely targetable therapies. And unlike traditional chemotherapy, these ADCs target tumors by delivering the attached payload to destroy cancer cells while sparing the healthy or normal cells, thereby potentially reducing negative side effects for patients.

About The Onco'Zine Brief
The Onco'Zine Brief is distributed in the United States via PRX (Public Radio Exchange). In the United Kingdom and Europe, the program is distributed via UK Health Radio (UKHR). And the program can be downloaded via most podcasts and streaming media services, including iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, and iHeart Radio.

For more information about The Onco'Zine Brief or how to sponsor or support this public radio broadcast and podcast, Download our Media Kit, or visit our Patreon page.

For more information about cancer and cancer treatments, visit our online journal Onco'Zine.
To sign up for The Onco'Zine Newsletter (open for residents of the United States only), text the word CANCER to 66866.
The Onco’Zine Brief is made possible, in part, by Java Original Coffee – the home of artisan roasted coffee and Roastmasterz by Java Original.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-onco-zine-brief--2786156/support.