Eva Vertes Quotes

If you sequence a cancerous tumor, you should be able to tailor the therapy according to the root cause of the cancer. But it has taken so long to do the sequencing - which also requires time to prepare the samples and interpret the deluge of data that comes out - that the patients are already undergoing therapy by the process if over.

Breast cancer isn't one disease - it's probably four or five different types, and without knowing what type a person has, you can't optimize treatment for them.

I think one possibility [in the future] might be chemotherapy. And I'm always hesitant to say that because it makes it sound like I'm against chemotherapy. Right now, chemotherapy is the best cancer treatment therapy we have. But let's say we find some way where we can almost genetically engineer the DNA of our being and fight cancer that way. Then, the idea that we used to pump poison into people to fight off cancer will almost seem like the use of leeches or something.

Chemotherapy is just medieval. It's such a blunt instrument. We're going to look back on it like we do the dark ages.

Every cancer looks different. Every cancer has similarities to other cancers. And we're trying to milk those differences and similarities to do a better job of predicting how things are going to work out and making new drugs.

By acquiring Biovex, we're continuing the transformation of Amgen into a company that supports therapeutic oncology as well as supportive care oncology.

When are we going to say cancer is cured? I'm not sure when that will happen, if that will happen because cancer is a very slippery disease and it involves a vast number of cells in the body and those cells are continually mutating.

Say you have cancer - you have this broad thing we call cancer; we're going to irradiate you and pump this poisonous material into you and hope more of the bad stuff dies than the good. That is going to seem so medieval when we can fix it on a genetic level, and Foundation Medicine is the first step to diagnosing it on a genetic level.

We can get much better outcomes from people if we understand the genetic basis of the exact cancer that they have, what interventions might be most effective against it, what's worked in the past and what hasn't.

Although not yet routine, many cancer centers have the technology to sequence some or all of a patient's cancer genome. This can provide massive amounts of valuable information about your cancer, including whether you have genetic mutations and other abnormalities for which new drugs are available.

I don't want 100 different cures of cancer. I want, you know, give me five. So if you had, you know, five medicines, you could do away with 90 percent of cancer. That's sort of my objective. I think we're going to do it.

Every single cancer is a genetic disease. Not necessarily inherited from your parents, but it's genetic changes which cause cancer. So as we sequence the genomes of tumours and compare those to the sequence of patients, we're getting down to the fundamental basis of each individual person's cancer.

We once thought of cancer as an incurable disease; then we started treating it.

I am very proud to be a part of the Livestrong Foundation. I am maybe only a member but I give everything I can to be sure that people understand that cancer is a disease for everybody - not only in France, in Europe, in Asia, it is all over the world. We must fight together, we must make something to fight the cancer, we must Livestrong.

If there's a seminal discovery in oncology in the last 20 years, it's that idea that cancer genes are often mutated versions of normal genes.

I believe that we are going to have a much deeper appreciation of what kinds of abnormalities in cancer cells and in the surrounding cells that feed and respond to cancers are vulnerabilities that will allow us to make better predictions of which kinds of drugs will work to treat these cancers.

If you have lung cancer, the most important thing you can know is your genetic code.

I joined forces with the American Cancer Society in 2010 as a spokesperson for the N.F.L.'s 'A Crucial Catch' campaign, which benefits the American Cancer Society. This was important to me because I lost my mother to breast cancer, and I have always felt a strong commitment to doing all I can to fight this disease.

Everything on my body turned real dark. My toes, under my feet, inside my mouth, under my tongue - I just turned really dark. I'm still here, but it's gonna take a while to get back to normal. Chemo kills all the good cells along with the bad.

In retrospect, I have devoted my scientific life mainly to the question to what extent infectious agents contribute to human cancer, trusting that this will contribute to novel modes of cancer prevention, diagnosis and, hopefully, later on, also to cancer therapy.

The generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort in Nature, thrown down from her proper state, and defending herself in vain.

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I'm tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I've opened up my own pathology center.

Cancer is a collection of many diseases with common principles, and each disease will have to be understood and more effectively controlled on its own terms.

I'm happy to say that I am in remission. That R word is something critically important to cancer patients, especially in a disease like myeloma. But I never lose sight of the fact that there is another R word called relapse.

Genome-based treatment, based on wider and cheaper availability of genome data, will provide new ways to customize the therapeutic protocol and enhance our control over diseases and medical treatment.