Applying lessons from COVID-19 to cancer drugs
‘We’re ... a lot more confident’
As an oncologist, I recognize the arduous path to make a new drug. It is a hard trek that lies between the bench and the patient’s bedside. Ordinarily, it takes five or more years just to get a new drug into the clinic for testing. Similar time is needed for clinical trials. Then comes Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, followed by the time it takes for licensing, manufacture, distribution and adoption by physicians.
Ordinarily, this means that 12 or more years might pass before the FDA even begins its evaluation of a new drug or regimen. This is before any therapy becomes part of our disease-fighting armamentarium.
Witness the difference, however, when public-private interests meet in formal partnerships to accomplish the extraordinary. More than one COVID-19 vaccine became available in less than one year since the DNA sequence of the COVID-19 virus was deciphered. And the RNA-based technology used for the first two COVID19 vaccines to cross the finish line had never been tried before. By comparison, it took four years to get to market the mumps vaccine that was until now the shortest time for vaccine development.
These partnerships brought together government experts at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere with other scientists and clinicians who work in the academic and biopharmaceutical sectors. These partners moved at breakneck speed. And now public-health, policy and logistics professionals in both the public and private sectors must join again for an effective vaccine delivery system to get a shot into everyone’s arm.
Now, imagine how difficult the task is for deadly cancers. Unlike COVID-19 with a single viral cause, cancers typically arise from multiple genetic changes. Only about 1 in 20 promising cancer drugs that enter the clinic ever win FDA approval. And the development costs are enormous. We need better and faster results. But this is not easy to do.
First, we need a drug target that, when altered, gets rid of a cancer. Then we must find a compound to do the job. They are discovered by probing millions of structures for the rare ones that affect the target in the desired way. The early ones hardly ever turn into drugs to give to patients. They might not be selective enough, have inadequate drug levels, have too much toxicity or side effects, or are hard to make.
Overcoming these shortcomings takes time. A different approach is required.
Public-private partnerships are a solution. They look beyond any single person’s skills to bring together experts with diverse talents and robust resources. United, they attain feats that were previously beyond their reach. We saw its success against COVID-19. Let’s now use the same plan to fight cancer.
A growing number of organizations are taking advantage of the power of partnerships. These are efforts like the National Cancer Institute’s Chemical Biology Consortium, the Innovative Medicines Initiative in Europe and Open Targets. This is a start.
Never before have scientists and clinicians had as much cancer knowledge and so many formidable tools to make progress against this scourge. Immense public and private databases store knowledge about drug screening experiments, genetic data and clinical outcomes. The emerging force of ultra-high-performance computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence can plumb these data for answers that might not readily be found.
Consider how real-world experiences of cancer sufferers could be mined from their medical charts. Sophisticated artificial intelligence tools can unleash insights that are hidden in these records. This could lead us to find new cancer therapies.
COVID-19 is a global health crisis. It called for an international collaboration to find the first remedies. Cancer, like this pandemic, flouts national borders. Largescale cooperation between nations could accelerate our progress against cancer. And this might model how best to uncover solutions to other big problems that we face like repairing our infrastructure or confronting climate change.
By banding together, the public and private sectors can make an even greater difference in the lives of those stricken with cancer. Only time will tell whether this approach will triumph. But all of us have a stake in its success. Otherwise, too many of us or our families must still endure the awful burden of cancer.
With meetings against No. 6 Virginia and No. 1 Duke scheduled for the first and third games of the season, the Towson men’s lacrosse team understood the significance of playing well in the second game against St. Joseph’s.
The Tigers earned a muchneeded win against the Hawks, but hardly anything came easy in the 8-7 overtime decision Saturday afternoon at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson.
Towson (1-1) squandered a fourgoal advantage in the third quarter and endured a scoreless fourth quarter before redshirt freshman midfielder Andrew Milani scored the winning goal with 2:34 left in the extra session. After getting swamped by the Cavaliers, 20-11, on Feb. 6 and with an upcoming date against the Blue Devils on Feb. 20, securing a victory against St. Joseph’s was crucial.
“It was a confidence booster,” Milani said. “We’re obviously a lot more confident now. Virginia was a really good team, and Duke’s going to be a good team. But we’ve got confidence in ourselves. We’re going to go out and play our hardest and hopefully come out with a win.”
Milani, a Catonsville resident and St. Paul’s graduate, provided the heroics for the Tigers. The Hawks opened overtime by winning the faceoff, but senior attackman Matt Tufano threw the ball past a teammate, and it sailed out of bounds, giving possession to Towson. After clearing the ball, the Tigers called a timeout to set up the potential winning play.
After a few dodges and a couple shots by teammates that went awry, Milani carried the ball from the left wing against a short-stick defensive midfielder, turned back to his right, and laced a shot between graduate student goalkeeper Jack Zullo’s legs to set off a full-field celebration.
“I just got under him a little bit and just shot it right under him,” said Milani, who scored twice. “Luckily, it went five-hole.”
St. Joseph’s coach Taylor Wray said he was not surprised by Milani’s move before releasing his shot.
“We had sort of scouted that he liked to roll back and shoot the ball off the defender’s hip, and he did what he was good at, and he made the play,” Wray said. “I don’t think there was anything too out of the ordinary about the play, but he made a terrific shot to seal the victory.”
Towson defensive coordinator Steve Grossi, who filled in while head coach Shawn Nadelen finished a two-game suspension for a self-reported NCAA compliance violation, noted that Milani, fifth-year senior attackman Brody McLean (three goals and one assist), and senior midfielders Casey Wasserman (one goal and one assist) and Andrew Beacham (one goal and one assist) each finished with multiple points.
“Andrew’s been doing a great job,” Grossi said of Milani. “He put himself in a position to make a play. But it’s not just Andrew. If you look at our scoring stat line, the entire offense worked together there. We were able to just put him in a position where he’s comfortable around the goal, and he made a play.”
The emotion from the Towson bench may have been a little over the top, but it was also understandable. The win was the program’s first since May 4, 2019 when that squad outlasted Drexel, 16-14, for the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament championship. The win ended a run of eight consecutive losses for the Tigers. It was also the Tigers’ first victory in overtime since May 3, 2018 when that team edged Delaware, 9-8, in a CAA tournament semifinal.
Towson appeared to be in command courtesy of a 4-0 run spanning the second and third quarters. McLean scored two goals within a 39-second span of the third quarter to complete his second hat trick in as many games and lift the Tigers to a 6-2 advantage with 12:26 left in the third quarter.But St. Joseph’s scored three times in 51 seconds in the third quarter to narrow the deficit to 6-5. Junior defenseman Matt Popeck’s tally off a feed from junior midfielder Adam Ritter capped the spurt with 8:40 remaining.
Milani ended an 8:46 drought for Towson when he picked up a loose ball in front of the net and dumped it in with 3:40 left in the period. But the Tigers were blanked on eight shots in the fourth quarter, and the Hawks took advantage.
First, Brennan turned back a shot, but sophomore midfielder Mac McLaughlin snatched the rebound and deposited the ball into an empty net that had been vacated by Brennan with 9:34 remaining. Then with 1:32 left, senior midfielder Austin Strazzulla curled the left post and fired the ball past goalkeeper Shane Brennan to send the game to overtime.
A persistent freezing rain wreaked havoc on both teams, which combined for almost 50 turnovers (28 by St. Joseph’s and 21 by Towson). But Wray, the Hawks coach, was not pleased with nine of 15 failed clears and an offense that failed to get off a shot in overtime.
It will be mostly cloudy today with some patchy fog in the morning with a slight chance of freezing rain before turning to rain in the afternoon. Highs will be around 40 degrees. There will be a 50 percent chance for rain tonight with lows in the mid-30s. Monday could see freezing rain in the morning as it remains cloudy in the afternoon with highs in the upper 30s. Monday night will see rain with lows in the lower 30s. -- Sun staff
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