Cancer Early Detection Seminar Series - Dr. Azra Raza, M.D.

The First Cell and the Human Cost of going after Cancer’s last



Dr. Azra Raza, M.D.
Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine
Director, Myelodysplastic Syndrome Center
Columbia University Medical Center





Due to concerns about COVID-19, the seminar will be available in-person or via a zoom live stream. 

Meeting URL: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/324717939
Dial: +1 650 724 9799 (US, Canada, Caribbean Toll) or +1 833 302 1536 (US, Canada, Caribbean Toll Free)
Meeting ID: 324 717 939

Thursday, March 19, 2020
Beckman Center, Munzer Auditorium (B060)
11:00am - 12:00pm Seminar & Discussion
12:00pm - 12:15pm Mingling (no refershments)

ABSTRACT
Cancer will strike 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women. Yet, we are failing spectacularly to improve outcome for the majority of patients. Our contention is that the real solution to the cancer problem is to diagnose cancer early, at the stage of The First Cell. The footprints of early cancers, the surrogate biomarkers, need to be identified so we can detect the first cell. The rapidly evolving technologies are doing much in this area but need to be expanded. We study a pre-leukemic condition called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with the hope that we can detect the first leukemia cells as the disease transforms to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Towards this end, we have collected blood and bone marrow samples on MDS and AML patients since 1984. Today, our Tissue Repository has more than 60,000 samples. We propose novel methods to identify surrogate markers that can identify the First Cell through studying the serial samples of patients who evolve from MDS to AML.


Hosted by: Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, M.D., Ph.D.
Sponsored by the Canary Center
Stanford University - School of Medicine