New York Times' story captures essence of GeneKey strategy

A dramatic story in the New York Times details the saga of a young cancer scientist stricken with leukemia, whose lab colleagues pulled out all the stops, using the latest genomic technologies in a race to save his life. Their efforts led them to a previously unreported genetic target and a drug that, to their immense surprise and relief, proved effective.

The article describes in detail an approach virtually identical to the one we pioneered at GeneKey:

Dr. Ley’s team tried a type of analysis that they had never done before. They fully sequenced the genes of both his cancer cells and healthy cells for comparison, and at the same time analyzed his RNA, a close chemical cousin to DNA, for clues to what his genes were doing.

The researchers on the project put other work aside for weeks, running one of the university’s 26 sequencing machines and supercomputer around the clock. And they found a culprit — a normal gene that was in overdrive, churning out huge amounts of a protein that appeared to be spurring the cancer’s growth.

Even better, there was a promising new drug that might shut down the malfunctioning gene — a drug that had been tested and approved only for advanced kidney cancer. Dr. Wartman became the first person ever to take it for leukemia.

And now, against all odds, his cancer is in remission and has been since last fall.

At GeneKey, our full-genome analyses of patients' tumors have in nearly every case turned up novel targets and promising drugs that the patients' doctors would not otherwise have considered. The New York Times article notes that "Researchers differ about how soon the method, known as whole genome sequencing, will be generally available and paid for by insurance — estimates range from a few years to a decade or so."

That's the one point upon which we respectfully disagree. The method is already available to patients today at GeneKey.

In Treatment for Leukemia, Glimpses of the Future