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SOURCE: Alfacell Corporation
Alfacell Forms New Thoracic Cancer Advisory Board
January 27, 2006
BLOOMFIELD, N.J., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alfacell Corporation (Nasdaq: ACEL - News) today announced the formation of a Thoracic Cancer Advisory Board to support the Company's strategic focus on developing novel ribonuclease (RNase) therapies for the treatment of diseases such as mesothelioma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The Thoracic Cancer Advisory Board will work in coordination with the Company's prestigious Scientific Advisory Board, led by Dr. David Sidransky, Director of Head and Neck Cancer Research at Johns Hopkins University, as well as with the Business Policy Committee, chaired by former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.
"We are extremely pleased to have attracted such esteemed colleagues to the Alfacell Thoracic Cancer Advisory Board," stated Kuslima Shogen, Chief Executive Officer of Alfacell. "All are highly-accomplished, internationally-renowned experts in oncology, and are universally recognized as thought leaders and pioneers in mesothelioma and lung cancer research. We look forward to collaborating with them closely to advance our shared vision of developing new therapies to treat these insidious diseases."
Michele Carbone, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman
Dr. Carbone is Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program at Loyola University in Chicago, where he is also a tenured Professor at the Cancer Center, Department of Pathology. Previously, Dr. Carbone held scientific and academic positions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and at the University of Chicago. He is a board certified pathologist, and a past recipient of the NIH's prestigious Fogarty Fellowship. During his fellowship at the NIH, Dr. Carbone obtained his Ph.D. in Human Pathology through a combined research program between the University of Roma and the NIH. He is well-known for his groundbreaking research that identified the SV40 virus -- previously characterized only as a polio vaccine contaminant -- as a human carcinogen in mesothelioma, and for discovering that genetic predisposition to mineral fiber carcinogenesis is the cause of a mesothelioma epidemic in Turkey. More recently, Dr. Carbone's work has identified the mechanisms of asbestos carcinogenesis and co-carcinogenesis with SV40. Dr. Carbone's work in mesothelioma has been acknowledged by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Cancer Society, and other leading research institutions, which have awarded him numerous grants in recent years -- including a $9.5M PO-1 in 2006 from the NCI to study the pathogenesis of mesothelioma. Dr. Carbone has authored nearly 200 publications, including original research articles, books, and book chapters. He is a graduate of the Medical School of Rome, and obtained board certification in Anatomic Pathology from both the University of Roma and the University of Chicago.
Dr. Pass is Professor of Surgery and Chief, Division of Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Oncology at NYU School of Medicine and Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has studied pleural mesothelioma since 1988 when he was the Head of Thoracic Oncology and Senior Investigator of the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda and then Head of Thoracic Oncology at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit (one of the 37 NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers). Dr. Pass combines cytoreductive surgery, either EPP or pleurectomy, with innovative or standard adjuvant therapies including novel antiangiogenesis inhibitors postoperatively or chemotherapy combinations. His Thoracic Oncology laboratory is pursuing the study of proteins (proteomics) and gene expression profiles in mesothelioma to develop new early detection strategies, as well as designing alternate innovative treatments which use novel proteins as targets for mesothelioma. Dr. Pass is a graduate of Duke University Medical School.
Dr. Flores is a board-certified thoracic surgeon and Assistant Member
at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; an Assistant Attending
Surgeon at Memorial Hospital, New York and an Assistant Professor of Cardiothoracic
Surgery, Weill College, Cornell University, New York. Previously, Dr.
Flores was a recipient of prestigious fellowships at Harvard Medical School
and Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he received the Thoracic Oncology
Clinical Research Fellowship for Intraoperative Chemotherapy, Mesothelioma
and Lung Cancer. Dr. Flores is well-known for having compiled one of the
largest mesothelioma patient databases to research areas of failure, and
to determine how to improve treatments. His other areas of expertise include
minimally invasive thoracic surgery (thoracoscopy); VATS lobectomy; lung
cancer screening; tracheobronchial resection; extrapleural pneumonectomy
for mesothelioma; intraoperative chemotherapy; lymph-node mapping; esophageal
cancer, and Belsey repair. Dr. Flores is also a frequent lecturer and
presenter on the diagnosis, treatment and management of mesothelioma and
lung cancer. He is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
in New York.