May 2008 dispatch@sloankettering.edu

Our first class of six students transition from students to scientists as they begin their dissertation research. The School prepares to welcome a new class of PhD students and summer undergraduate students. New faculty join our growing community. And students and staff support a worthy cause close to home.

Researchers led by Gerstner Sloan-Kettering faculty have shown that therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), can be used to treat Parkinson's disease in mice.

In 2005, 15 years after the start of the Human Genome Project and two years after the full human genome sequence was completed, the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute announced the launch of the pilot phase of The Cancer Genome Atlas. The project seeks to accelerate the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of a variety of genome analysis technologies.

Imagine a day when a patient could have a biopsy taken from a tumor, have the entire genome of the tumor characterized, and then be treated with drugs and other therapies that are tailored to the exact genetic changes present in the tumor cells. The scenario is not science fiction, but a goal that investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and other institutions have recognized as one of the most promising avenues for treating cancer.

An international group of investigators led by scientists at Gerstner Sloan-Kettering and the National Cancer Institute has identified a new genetic marker of risk for breast cancer.

Gerstner Sloan-Kettering faculty member Lorenz Studer's professional journey has taken him from humble beginnings in a storage-room-turned-laboratory in his native Switzerland to a state-of-the-art research facility at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, where he studies the use of embryonic stem cells to repair or replace cells that have been lost or damaged through disease.