The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation GI Cancer OncoSET Program
at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University
OncoSET is an unprecedented initiative to deliver personalized, effective cancer treatments to patients who currently have very limited options.
THE NEED for OncoSET for People with GI Cancers
The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation recognizes the desperate need for new medical discoveries to provide better options for people challenged with very difficult and complex GI cancers, such as liver, pancreatic, and colon cancers. This year, there will be an estimated 1.7 million new cancer cases and over 595,000 deaths. Of this total, GI cancers will account for nearly 20% of cancer cases. For over 18 years, the Foundation has chosen to partner with the world-class Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University to advance this urgent cause in significant ways.
THE POWER to Deliver Personalized Therapies
OncoSET is driven by three vital steps:
- Sequence to determine the makeup of a tumor using genomic analysis
- Evaluate and discuss the genetic profile with the Lurie Cancer Center’s OncoSET Molecular Tumor Board, a multidisciplinary group of leading physicians and scientists
- Treat based on a personalized plan, with a targeted therapy or a new treatment being studied in a clinical trial
These steps are complemented by important laboratory research studies that will be developed using molecular information and may ultimately lead to the development of novel therapeutic agents.
The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation’s commitment to fund and name the GI Cancer OncoSET program at Northwestern will specifically help to advance the development of new novel clinical trials in GI cancers, as well as crucial translational (bench-to-bedside) research and genomic profiling activities.
THE PROMISE of OncoSET for People with GI Cancers
The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation GI Cancer OncoSET is an extension of the Lurie Cancer Center’s breakthrough OncoSET Program. In 2014, the Lurie Cancer Center became the first academic cancer center in Chicago and one of only a handful in the nation to provide personalized medicine to patients with tumors—especially those tumors that are resistant to traditional cancer therapies.
OncoSET (Sequence, Evaluate, Treat) is based on the premise that each individual and every person’s cancer is unique. It harnesses the power of precision medicine to identify tailored therapies for patients based on the abnormal genes specific to their tumor.
Located on Northwestern’s Chicago medical campus, the OncoSET Clinic combines genomic sequencing and sophisticated molecular analysis with standard pathology to identify new, individually tailored treatments and clinical trials for patients. OncoSET is an innovative approach to deliver personalized, effective cancer treatments to patients who currently have very limited options.
We believe in the enormous potential of OncoSET at the Lurie Cancer Center and want to help courageous patients with GI cancers who are facing such limited options. We are committing $1.5 million in philanthropic funds to create The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation GI Cancer OncoSET Program at the Lurie Cancer Center and to provide continued support for the Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation GI Cancer Tissue Bank and Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation Research Scholar Award. Now, we need you and your support!
- By offering cancer patients care within The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation GI Cancer OncoSET program, we are also expanding the Lurie Cancer Center’s pre-clinical research by collecting and analyzing detailed data from each patient’s genomic profile.
- The information collected will allow researchers at the Lurie Cancer Center to identify new treatment patterns and important genomic pathways to develop novel approaches to cancer treatment.
- In addition, it will drive new laboratory studies to define the value of new targets identified by sequencing or other methods and may lead to the development of novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of GI malignancies that do not exist at this time.
The Foundation is committed to Northwestern’s dedicated physicians and scientists and their efforts to not only help patients and their families, but also to realize the great potential of this groundbreaking GI cancer-focused program. The Lurie Cancer Center is on a path to establish Northwestern as a global leader in developing and providing effective personalized GI Cancer treatment and to establish Chicago as an international hub for such care. The Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation wants to be the catalyst in making this possible.
