MY 40 YEARS BATTLE WITH CANCER - Lanre Jacob
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/06/40-years-battle-cancer-lanre-jacob/
Tuesday, 7 August 2018
Thursday, 19 July 2018
LJSCF TAKES CANCER EDUCATION ACROSS LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA
LJSCF is continuing its Cancer Education Project in Lagos, Nigeria. In about 300 Primary Healthcare Centers and in almost 4000 communities, Lanre Jacob Sarcoma Cancer Foundation, we implement the Lagos Cancer Awareness Project as approved by the state healthcare board.
Thursday, 25 January 2018
PRESS RELEASE
LJSCF KICKS OFF CANCER EDUCATION FOR ALL IN LAGOS STATE
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer
Foundation has been
approved by the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board to implement community
sensitization in all the Local Government Areas of Lagos State.
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation is a non –
Governmental Organization with a focus on Prevention and early detection of cancer
through education of community groups across Nigeria. Its CANCER EDUCATION FOR ALL Project which began in 2016 is designed to
be a continuous exercise, for meaningful impact.
Following the approval by the Primary Healthcare Board of
Lagos State, about 300 Primary Healthcare Centers and over 2000 communities
will benefit from the LJSCF Preventive Cancer care project in the state.
Already, the Cancer Education for All Project has started in
Lagos. It is called: Lagos Cancer Project. Its first sensitization program for
2018 was carried out on the 16th of January, at the Primary
Healthcare Center, Akowonjo in Alimosho Local Government. According to the Foundation’s sensitization
plan, the program at PHC Akowonjo is one out of the ten cancer education
programs scheduled to hold in the first quarter of 2018. Other PHC to benefit
from this project in Alimosho Local Government are: PHC Orisunmibare, PHC
Abaranje, PHC Ayobo, PHC, Baruwa, PHC Ipaja, PHC Egbe, PHC Aboru, PHC Akinogun,
and PHC Bada.
In the second quarter of 2018, LJSCF will move the Lagos
Cancer Project to Ikeja and Agege Local Government Areas of the State.
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation as a registered non-profit
was borne out of the experience of the cancer survivor, Lanre Jacob, who for
thirty years suffered Dermato-fibro-sarcoma protuberance (DFSP), a malignant
tumor on his head. The cancer which Jacob encountered at the age of ten led to
many bouts of dangerous surgeries and it is miracle that a man would survive so
many traumas on one head!
Having survived by the grace of God, Lanre Jacob, a Film writer,
Playwright and Researcher, decided to go into cancer advocacy, with emphasis on
cancer prevention and early detection through sustained cancer education, both
in the urban and the rural parts of Nigeria.
At present, there are well over 3 million cases of cancer in
Nigeria, with more than 100, 000 cases recorded annually – aside the great
number of undiagnosed cancer cases that lead to preventable deaths across the
country.
No doubt, project like this requires huge human, capital and
material resources to succeed. Lanre - Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation is
therefore calling for volunteers and on well-meaning Nigerians to partner with
her on this life-saving enterprise. The time is here when all hands must be on
deck to stem the rising cases of cancer in Nigeria, as prevention and early
detection of cancer is much cheaper than going through the usually expensive
and traumatic process of cancer treatments. .
Signed
Segun Ibidapo
Publicity Secretary, LJSCF
CANCER EDUCATION FOR ALL
PRESS RELEASE
2, Egunjobi
Street, Salami Bus Stop, Shasha, Lagos. Tel: 08130133902.
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer
Foundation has been
approved by the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board to implement community
sensitization in all the Local Government Areas of Lagos State.
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation is a non –
Governmental Organization with a focus on Prevention and early detection of cancer
through education of community groups across Nigeria. Its CANCER EDUCATION FOR ALL Project which began in 2016 is designed to
be a continuous exercise, for meaningful impact.
Following the approval by the Primary Healthcare Board of
Lagos State, about 300 Primary Healthcare Centers and over 2000 communities
will benefit from the LJSCF Preventive Cancer care project in the state.
Already, the Cancer Education for All Project has started in
Lagos. It is called: Lagos Cancer Project. Its first sensitization program for
2018 was carried out on the 16th of January, at the Primary
Healthcare Center, Akowonjo in Alimosho Local Government. According to the Foundation’s sensitization
plan, the program at PHC Akowonjo is one out of the ten cancer education
programs scheduled to hold in the first quarter of 2018. Other PHC to benefit
from this project in Alimosho Local Government are: PHC Orisunmibare, PHC
Abaranje, PHC Ayobo, PHC, Baruwa, PHC Ipaja, PHC Egbe, PHC Aboru, PHC Akinogun,
and PHC Bada.
In the second quarter of 2018, LJSCF will move the Lagos
Cancer Project to Ikeja and Agege Local Government Areas of the State.
Lanre – Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation as a registered non-profit
was borne out of the experience of the cancer survivor, Lanre Jacob, who for
thirty years suffered Dermato-fibro-sarcoma protuberance (DFSP), a malignant
tumor on his head. The cancer which Jacob encountered at the age of ten led to
many bouts of dangerous surgeries and it is miracle that a man would survive so
many traumas on one head!
Having survived by the grace of God, Lanre Jacob, a Film writer,
Playwright and Researcher, decided to go into cancer advocacy, with emphasis on
cancer prevention and early detection through sustained cancer education, both
in the urban and the rural parts of Nigeria.
At present, there are well over 3 million cases of cancer in
Nigeria, with more than 100, 000 cases recorded annually – aside the great
number of undiagnosed cancer cases that lead to preventable deaths across the
country.
No doubt, project like this requires huge human, capital and
material resources to succeed. Lanre - Jacob Savcoma Cancer Foundation is
therefore calling for volunteers and on well-meaning Nigerians to partner with
her on this life-saving enterprise. The time is here when all hands must be on
deck to stem the rising cases of cancer in Nigeria, as prevention and early
detection of cancer is much cheaper than going through the usually expensive
and traumatic process of cancer treatments. .
Signed
Segun Ibidapo
Publicity Secretary, LJSCF
Friday, 12 January 2018
NCI study identifies essential genes for cancer immunotherapy
National Cancer Institute
A new study identifies genes that are necessary in cancer cells for immunotherapy to work, addressing the problem of why some tumors don’t respond to immunotherapy or respond initially but then stop as tumor cells develop resistance to immunotherapy.
The study, from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), was led by Nicholas Restifo, M.D., a senior investigator with NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, with coauthors from NCI; Georgetown University, Washington D.C.; the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York University, New York City; and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. It was published online in Nature on August 7, 2017. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“There is a great deal of interest in cancer immunotherapy, especially for patients who have metastatic cancer,” said Dr. Restifo. “The response to immunotherapy can be fantastic, but understanding why some patients don’t respond will help us improve treatments for more patients.”
Cancer immunotherapy relies on T cells, a type of cell in the immune system, to destroy tumors. Dr. Restifo and his colleagues have previously shown that the infusion of large numbers of T cells can trigger complete regression of cancer in patients. They and others have also shown that T cells can directly recognize and kill tumor cells.
However, some tumor cells are resistant to the destruction unleashed by T cells. To investigate the basis for this resistance, the researchers sought to identify the genes in cancer cells that are necessary for them to be killed by T cells.
Working with a melanoma tumor cell line, the researchers used a gene editing technology called CRISPR that “knocks out,” or stops the expression, of individual genes in cancer cells. By knocking out every known protein-encoding gene in the human genome and then testing the ability of the gene-modified melanoma cells to respond to T cells, they found more than 100 genes that may play a role in facilitating tumor destruction by T cells.
Once the team identified these “candidate” genes, they sought additional evidence that these genes play a role in susceptibility to T cell-mediated killing. To this end, they examined data on “cytolytic activity,” or a genetic profile that shows cancer cells are responding to T cells, in more than 11,000 patient tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas, a collaboration between NCI and the National Human Genome Research Institute, also part of NIH. They found that a number of the genes identified in the CRISPR screen as being necessary for tumor cells to respond to T cells were indeed associated with tumor cytolytic activity in patient samples.
One such gene is called APLNR. The product of this gene is a protein called the apelin receptor. Although it had been suspected to contribute to the development of some cancers, this was the first indication of a role in the response to T cells. Further investigation of tumors from patients resistant to immunotherapies showed that the apelin receptor protein was nonfunctional in some of them, indicating that the loss of this protein may limit the response to immunotherapy treatment.
Shashank Patel, Ph.D., the first author of the study, said the results show that “many more genes than we originally expected play a vital role in dictating the success of cancer immunotherapies.”
The researchers wrote that this gene list could serve as a blueprint to study the emergence of tumor resistance to T cell-based cancer therapies. Dr. Restifo noted that if this set of genes is validated in clinical trials, then this data could eventually lead to more effective treatments for patients.
“If we can truly understand mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy, we might be able to develop new therapeutics,” he said. “In fact, in the future, this knowledge could speed the development of a new category of drugs that can circumvent these escape mechanisms of tumor cells and help patients experience complete responses.”
About the National Cancer Institute (NCI): NCI leads the National Cancer Program and NIH’s efforts to dramatically reduce the prevalence of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI website at cancer.gov or call NCI’s Contact Center (formerly known as the Cancer Information Service) at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit nih.gov.
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