The Hirshberg Foundation is pleased to announce that Drs. Joe Hines and Randolph Hecht will be joining us at the 16th Annual Symposium on Pancreatic Cancer to present on the different approaches to the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
The current standard-of-care for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) focuses on chemotherapeutic regimens and pancreatic cancer surgery. This treatment approach uses one standard to determine the course of treatment for all individuals diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Yet, with the increased availability of next-generation sequencing, doctors can now rapidly and affordably identify genomic alterations in tumors and potentially match them to an ever-growing number of targeted therapies.
Precision medicine has been an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. This approach allows doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies will bring the best results, in contrast to a one-size-fits-all approach, with less consideration for the differences between individuals. Thanks to advances in research and technology, doctors and patients are faced with navigating the choice of precision medicine or standard-of-care when it comes to treatment.
Dr. Joe Hines is the Professor and Interim Chair of the UCLA Department of Surgery, Chair of the American Board of Surgery, past President of the American Pancreatic Association, and President of the Society of University Surgeons Foundation. Dr. Hines attended the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, trained in general surgery at UCLA, including two years of research in gastrointestinal physiology, and was then recruited to the UCLA faculty in 1997. While at UCLA he has received the Department Golden Scalpel Award for teaching excellence twelve times and the UCLA School of Medicine Award for Excellence in Education. His research has focused on angiogenesis, cytokines, and pancreatic carcinogenesis, including the role of diet in modulating these processes. He served on the NIH Scientific Review Committee Tumor Progression and Metastasis. Dr. Hines was awarded the American College of Surgeons Traveling Fellowship to Germany in 2005, and was a James IV Traveling Fellow in 2011. He is past-President of the Society of University Surgeons and has served as the Vice-President of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association, President of the Southern California Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and was appointed to the Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Hines serves on the editorial boards of Surgery, Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery, and is an editor of Maignot’s Abdominal Operations.
Dr. Hecht is a Professor of Clinical Medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA School of Medicine. He holds the Carol and Saul Rosenzweig Chair for Cancer Therapies Development and is the Director of the UCLA Gastrointestinal Oncology Program. Dr. Hecht graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School. He took his internal medicine residency at Northwestern and completed fellowships in gastroenterology research at the University of Chicago, and in gastroenterology and medical oncology at UCLA. Dr. Hecht is an internationally known clinical and translational researcher in the field of gastrointestinal cancers. He has published widely on the molecular biology, early detection, and treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies. He has lead and is currently directing small trials with novel agents as well as large international trials in GI and pancreatic cancers using gene therapy vectors, growth factor inhibitors and new approaches to immunotherapy.
We are fortunate to have Drs. Joe Hines and Randolph Hecht joining us to share more about the future of Precision Medicine vs. Standard of Care For Treatment at the 16th Annual Symposium.