Dr. William Tap, chief of the Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service explains how patients in the clinic impact research in the lab in treating sarcoma.
Video Transcript
We’re working very hard to be able to understand the genetics of a person’s disease and that’s not something necessarily that was inherited but it’s what is causing their disease in their body. And that’s really important because now we are basing so much of our new therapies on the genetic abnormalities of a person’s tumor. And that’s one thing that we try very hard to offer here at Memorial Sloan Kettering. We have a tremendous research program, very active in drug discovery in sarcoma. But one of the goals is not to do that research where it can affect patient care in ten, fifteen years.
We really hope to bring the research in the lab very quickly to the patient. And more importantly, it’s often the clinical observations. In other words, what we see with our patients in the clinic that allows us to ask new questions in the lab that is going to be very important in the real time to our patients. And it’s that duality, it’s the transition from the lab to the clinic and the clinic back to the lab, which I think is critical in treating patients with sarcoma.
