Episode Highlights
0:15 Intro
3:39 Update in pre-lung cancer genome atlas research
17:06 Next steps: applying innovations in bronchoscopy
21:45 When we can anticipate results
25:05 Understanding the lung’s microbiome
29:21 Utility of fragmentomics
31:01 Outro
The ongoing research of the American Lung Association (ALA) and LUNGevity-collaborative project, “Intercept Lung Cancer Through Immune, Imaging & Molecular Evaluation In TIME,” looks simply to interpret the progression of lung cancer—from the first presentation of pre-cancerous cells to a malignant and highly deadly disease.
In between those stages are a highly complex and variable series of developments and biologic interplay that is slowly enveloping itself to the researchers using constantly modernized diagnostic and screening tools—which is to say, the more the ALA & LUNGevity team learns about how lung cancer progresses, the intricate the picture becomes.
It’s fitting, then, that an update on where the lung cancer interception research stands is itself intricate in nature.
Avrum Spira, MD, chief of the division of computational biomedicine at Boston University School of Medicine, and Steven M. Dubinett, MD, dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, return to Lungcast for the first time since November 2020 to provide an update on the ongoing lung cancer interception research collaborative project.
In their interview with Albert Rizzo, MD, chief medical officer of the ALA, the pair provide a look into the latest developments in their ongoing, 7-year interception research. Among the key highlights since they last reviewed the topic with Rizzo 4 years ago include an update to the foundational “genome atlas” designed to help interpret pre-lung cancer development risk, breakthroughs in understanding the role of lung-associated microbiome, and how cell-free DNA fragmentation patterns fit into the puzzle of their research.
Lungcast is a monthly respiratory news podcast series hosted by Albert Rizzo, MD, chief medical officer of the ALA, and produced by HCPLive.
Subscribe to Lungcast on Spotify here, or listen to the episode below.