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Located
at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine,
Dr. Krag’s laboratory is also evaluating
the optimal methods for detecting rare cancer
cells in the circulating blood of cancer patients.
Fifty to 75 percent of cancer cells that have
been added to blood can be reliably detected.
Determining the prevalence of cancer cells in
the blood of breast or colon cancer patients is
now in progress. Combining the methods of rare
event cancer cell detection with phage-display
panning methods to determine the feasibility of
panning for peptide ligands on rare cancer cells
detected in the blood or bone marrow is also ongoing.
Since
1992, Dr. Krag has been continuously involved
in the development of radio-guided surgical resection
of sentinel nodes in breast cancer patients. The
current research, in partnership with the National
Surgical Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP), is
conducting a Phase III randomized study of sentinel
node dissection with or without conventional axillary
dissection in women with clinically node negative
breast cancer. Dr. Krag is principal investigator
of this sentinel node study.
Everyone
has heard from the headlines that human genetic
code has been read. Our laboratory is poised to
take direct advantage of this new and powerful
tool in ways that were not possible even a few
years ago. |
