CDCN

As a med student, @DavidFajgenbaum nearly died several times from Castleman’s disease, a rare condition with no known treatment. After discovering his own cure, the @PennMedicine leader is now on a quest to help find treatments for others. ow.ly/favP50TuCwz

The new @WHO Classification of Haematolymphoid Tumours includes a section on Castleman disease for the first time ever thanks to the CDCN SAB's Amy Chadburn, David Fajgenbaum, and Megan Lim! Explore this resource on diagnosing and treating CD here: tumourclassification.iarc.who.int

What does Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Drew Weissman think of drug repurposing? Like us, he thinks it’s a no brainer! Developing new treatments for diseases is costly, time-consuming and driven by profit. Novel drug development requires $1-2B and 10-15 years per drug, and has a 90% failure rate. At @EveryCure we are pioneering a new approach to drug repurposing: to interrogate all of the world’s biomedical knowledge to find the most promising opportunities across all drugs and all diseases. #MedTwitter

I’m going to have an identity crisis! Should I be the LeCount Disease Collaborative Network?!

We love #drugrepurposing for #castleman disease, but this is our favorite one…

On our continued to-do list: support @DavidFajgenbaum and @EveryCure as they help alleviate suffering for the 300M people globally battling diseases with no approved treatments. Every Cure is unlocking the full potential of existing drugs to treat every disease possible.

In this study, researchers at the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory (CSTL) at Penn shed light on the burden faced by patients with idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (IMCD) at diagnosis and long-term. haematologica.org/article/view/h…

Researchers at the Cytokine Storm Treatment & Laboratory (CSTL) share insights into idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) and its subtypes that could potentially lead to patients benefiting from more personalized, tailored treatments. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bj…

From block captains to corporate leaders, we are privileged to have celebrated the diverse changemakers honored at The Citizen of the Year Awards. Together, we're making a difference in the City of Brotherly Love. ow.ly/OBON50QxoAK #CitizenOfTheYear #Changemakers

Love seeing this so much. #chasingmycure

Thinking back 13 years ago when I was fighting for my life in the ICU, I thought that there was no chance that I would survive. Nothing would have changed if I hadn't gone from just fighting to survive to fighting for a solution for my disease. Through my center at the University of Pennsylvania, we've uncovered 16 more drugs that can be used for diseases they weren't intended for. I also launched a nonprofit organization called @EveryCure about a year ago. We're helping patients all over the world with cures that were hiding in plain sight. I am so thankful for every moment, and I'm going to make sure that I do everything in my power to save as many l lives as possible. As we start the new year, what ambitious goal are you working towards? #MedTwitter

My top 10 books for 2023 @abe_verghese @peteratmsr @mustafasuleyman @DoctorChrisVT @PeterAttiaMD @kkariko @drfeifei @PeterHotez @DavidFajgenbaum @AnupamBJena @ChrisWorsham

Great to see our collaborative work/discovery between @EveryCure, @Penn, and @CureCastleman selected as one of the top 7 Biotech Moments of the Year of 2023! labiotech.eu/best-biotech/b…

Love seeing this profile on @LinkedInNews about our co-founder, @DavidFajgenbaum!

So great to be at the @ASH_hematology annual meeting where we’re holding our annual @CureCastleman workshop and our team is giving 6 presentations (below). cdcn.org/physicians-res… Let us know if you’re in #sandiego and want to meet up! Identification of Autoantibodies Associated with Connective Tissue Disorders in Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… Clinical Characteristics, Treatment Trends, and Outcomes of Patients with HHV-8-Negative/Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease Treated with Siltuximab in a Machine Learning-Selected Real-World Cohort ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… Clinical Characteristics and Treatment Outcomes of Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease: Data from a Pediatric Cohort ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… Exploratory Analyses of Lymph Node Tissue, Serum, and Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Do Not Reveal Pathogen Signatures in Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… A Translational Approach to Identifying and Targeting TNF Signaling in Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… The Role of CABIN1 in the Pathogenesis of Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease ash.confex.com/ash/2023/webpr… #castlemanwarrior #castleman

So good to see @doctorpemm at @ASH_hematology! Can’t wait for our annual #castleman meeting tonight! #castlemanwarrior #castlemanflex cdcn.org/physicians-res…

New drug development is like starting at your own 1-yard line with a 10% chance of driving down the field to score big in the end zone. Repurposing, on the other hand, is like being on the opponent's 5-yard line – so close to making a difference. It may not bring riches, but it can change lives. Sometimes, the solution is right there, waiting to be seized. Let's take advantage of these opportunities, so no patient is told ‘we’ve tired everything’ when there’s a lifesaving cure on the pharmacy shelf. #medtwitter

My passion for finding new uses for existing drugs started long before #chasingmycure While my mom was battling brain cancer, her doctors gave her a high dose of corticosteroids which pulled her out of a coma and allowed us to have 2 additional months with her before she passed away. Those two months were some of the most special two months of my life and it was all thanks to a drug that wasn't made for her disease. Fast forward years later, I nearly died five times from a rare and deadly illness before discovering, Sirolimus, a drug that wasn’t intended for my disease, giving me 9.5 years that I never expected to have. These personal encounters highlight why I am on a mission to find new uses from existing drugs. Alongside my teams at @everycure, @pennmedicine, and @curecastleman nothing can stop us from discovering cures for patients who need them most. #MedTwitter

Thank you to @AJMC_Journal for featuring @EveryCure, in its latest documentary about rare disease treatment gaps! A special shout out to Geri Landman MD MPH, cofounder and chair of Moonshots for Unicorns, who does amazing work and was also featured in this piece! I have timestamped the different sections of the video below! TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) Intro (0:50) Finding a Cure to My Rare Disease (2:07) Geri Landman describing PGAP3 (3:22) @EveryCure is disease-agnostic (6:25) Treatments for PGAP3 (13:27) The Importance of Patients in Research (14:43) Using AI to find Cures (16:55) Taking Repurposing Drugs into Clinical Trial

Ancient drug reduces heart attacks? In this clip from the @Medscape Podcast, Dr. @EricTopol and I discuss Colchicine’s recent FDA approval to reduce the risk of heart-attack and stroke. Colchicine has been used for gout for more than 3,000 years yet its anti-inflammatory properties have only recently been the subject to active research. As Dr. Topol astutely points out, we need to do a better job in the medical community of relaying these repurposing insights so more patients can benefit from them. What other age-old medicines might be overlooked due to a lack of financial motivations for research?