John Fahey and friends support The <strong>Cancer</strong> Council AustraliaThe proceeds of a special tribute dinner for former Commonwealth Finance Minister and NSW Premier the Hon John Fahey,who retired from Federal Parliament last year, have been donated to The <strong>Cancer</strong> Council Australia. The dinner was hosted byNSW Senator Marise Payne and NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden.Mr Fahey decided to retire frompolitics after being diagnosed withlung cancer. In presenting the$10,000 cheque to The <strong>Cancer</strong>Council Australia Chief ExecutiveOfficer Professor Alan Coates lastmonth, he said: “When you’redirectly affected by cancer, theimportance of quality informationand support – and the need forongoing research – really hits home. I,and all my friends who attended thedinner, are very pleased to be able tomake a contribution to reducing theimpact of cancer through thisdonation to the TCCA.”Prof Alan Coates, Prof Ray Lowenthal, Senator Marise Payne and the Hon John FaheyNEWSNew TCCA Communications ManagerJennifer Denholm has beenappointed CommunicationsManager of The <strong>Cancer</strong> CouncilAustralia. Jennifer comes toThe <strong>Cancer</strong> Council Australiafrom a specialist healthcarecommunications agency inLondon, where much of hertime was spent working withoncologists and patientfocusedcancer organisations.Previously she was PR andmedia officer for the pharmaceuticalbenefits branch of theCommonwealth Department ofHealth and Aged Care.Jennifer DenholmJennifer replaces Lisa-Maree Herron who is currently onmaternity leave.Who will you buya daffodil for?FRIDAY 23 AUGUSTTCCA movingThe <strong>Cancer</strong> Council Australia is moving from its current WilliamStreet address to the University of Sydney’s Medical FoundationBuilding in Camperdown. The move, anticipated to take placein mid-September 2002, will also involve the ClinicalOncological Society of Australia (COSA) and the Australian<strong>Cancer</strong> Network (ACN).1300 65 65 85www.daffodilday.com.au131<strong>Cancer</strong> <strong>Forum</strong> ■ Volume 26 Number 2 ■ July 2002
BOOK REVIEWSADVANCES IN CANCERRESEARCH, VOLUME 79G F Vande Woude and G Klein (eds)Published by Academic Press (2000)ISBN: 0-12-006679-3. 276 pages plus index.RRP: A$257.40The first three chapters of this volume continue the theme ofthe series by focussing on important and topical areas of wideinterest within the cancer field.Anti-angiogenic therapy is one of the hottest areas in cancerresearch, so a review in this series is most appropriate.Cherrington, Strawn and Shawver, from the US biotechnologycompany SUGEN Inc., naturally devote much of their attentionto angiogenic factors and their cognate receptor tyrosinekinases. They first review the receptors themselves, thendiscuss several inhibitors that are under clinical development.Of course, the date of this volume requires the reader whowants current information to follow up from other sources.The authors then move on to discuss the matrixmetalloproteinases, a class of proteases that are involved bothin angiogenesis and tumour invasion. These too have becomea popular drug target, with several inhibitors already in clinicaltrial.The next chapter by van der Voort et al from the University ofAmsterdam is a very comprehensive review of hepatocytegrowth factor (HGF) and its receptor, Met. HGF interacts withextracellular heparan sulphate proteoglycans, which functionas co-regulators of Met signalling. While discussing themultiple roles of HGF/Met in development, the authors pointout the strong connection between this pathway andbranching morphogenesis in a number of epithelial systemssuch as lung, pancreas and mammary gland. They then go onto examine the biochemical events triggered by Met, such asactivation of the Ras-MAPK pathway, the PI3K pathway andthe Rho-family GTPases. Finally, the authors review the role ofMet in cancer, focussing on its roles in invasion and metastasis,and then its possible role in B-cell development and neoplasia.Chambers et al from Ontario contribute another very topicalreview to this volume, which has as its subject anti-metastasistherapy. After examining new methods for studyingmetastasis, the authors explore the requirements for metastasisto a particular site. This is done in terms of the ‘seed and soil’analogy – that is, by considering the roles of cancer cell spreadand ability to grow in a given secondary site. They concludewith the notion that the most promising steps for therapeuticintervention are the initiation of growth in the secondary siteand its progression, rather than the steps leading to tumourspread in the first place.The fourth chapter by Bardeesy et al from the Harvard MedicalSchool is entitled ‘Animal Models of Melanoma’. In reviewingthis area it actually covers the role of two major tumoursuppressor pathways – p53/ARF and p16 INK4 in this disease also.Another section is devoted to the roles of receptor tyrosinekinases and their corresponding growth factors.The remaining chapters of this volume each deal with areasthat are of somewhat less general interest, though of coursebetween them, these are important to many researchers andclinicians. The topics reviewed are: the role of B-cellmicroenvironment in low-grade B-cell tumours (Ghia andCaligaris-Cappio, Turin); EBV latency (Longnecker, Chicago);Mucin-associated antigens in GI tract cancer (Baldus andHanisch, Cologne); and Polyoma virus persistence (Berke andDalianis, Karolinska Institue, Sweden).T GondaBionomics LtdThebarton, SAANTICANCER DRUGDEVELOPMENTBaguley and Kerr (ed)Published by Academic Press (2001)Distributed by Harcourt Australia Customer ServiceISBN: 0120726513. 384 pages plus IndexRRP: A$243.10This book gives an overview of the stages of drugdevelopment. The first four chapters deal with underlyingmechanisms of tumour development and how basicinformation about the cell cycle, cell signalling and deathpathways can provide targets for therapeutic attack. The nextsection is mainly about approaches to block tumourprogression and includes a useful summary of tumourantigens, an area with which tumour biologists and drugdesigners should become more familiar. This first half of thebook together with the three chapters on drug screeningshould be of wide interest to chemists, biomedical researchersand oncologists because of the concise, comprehensivedescriptions of pathways, with clear diagrams. The resultsgiven for some of the lead compounds highlight thecomplexities of signalling pathways and the importance ofcontext, but at the same time provide a framework for furtherdevelopment. The inclusion of chemical structures, oftenomitted in such reviews, is welcome. The chapters on drugdesign, bryostatins and peptide libraries are more specialised inappeal.The areas of toxicology and clinical trials highlight strategiesimportant to the eventual clinical testing of an anticancer drug.Given the expectations of funding sources, researchers need torecognise and cope with issues of drug development beyondtheir own specialty, for example pharmacology, surrogatemarkers for efficacy and toxicology, and trial design. There islittle mention of the rapidly expanding use of genomics andproteomics to address some of these problems. However, thebook will be a starting point for unravelling the molecularcorrelations emerging from gene expression profiling oftumours, and for designing tests for functional validation.Well-referenced and indexed, with some colour plates, this textwould be a useful addition to the clinic, research laboratoryand institution library.P ParsonsQueensland Institute of Medical ResearchHerston, Qldbookreviews<strong>Cancer</strong> <strong>Forum</strong> ■ Volume 26 Number 2 ■ July 2002 132
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