Why did we spell “smog” like “sm-AH-g” in the title? Well, if you made it past that first sentence, it’s not to imitate a “Bahston” accent from, say, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, or Mark Wahlberg, even though we have been known to say, “Pahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd” and...
This summer across the US the heat is on - really on - both outside and thanks to lead EpicentRx therapy and transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) inhibitor, AdAPT-001, inside tumors as well. Inside tumors it is the presence or absence of infiltrating T cells that...
Let’s play not the Blame Game or the Plame Game (which involved the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2007) but the Flame Game with lead EpicentRx therapies, RRx-001 (nibrozetone) and AdAPT-001. The object is to determine under what circumstances or conditions...
Following on from a previous post called, “A Blog About Smog,” is this one about Smaug, an antagonistic, treasure-hoarding dragon from J. R. R. Tolkien’s, The Hobbit. In “A Blog About Smog,” we describe the mechanism of action of lead EpicentRx therapy, RRx-001...
“For a universal definition of ecumenical read below.” Ecumenical Definition (adjective): 1) general; universal; worldwide “The FDA issues an ecumenical set of policies for drug developers hoping to get their drug approved in the US” 2) interreligious or...
Los Angeles. City of Angels…and smog. In LA, famous for its smog as much as its celebrities and palm trees, bad air quality is sort of par for the course like the constant rush hour traffic no matter the time of day - this is just a fact of life. Natural topography...
The IO from the title stands for immune-oncology. This term, IO, refers to therapies that mobilize the immune system to recognize and eradicate tumor cells. Instead of 7 dwarfs, EpicentRx features 2 therapies: RRx-001 (nibrozetone), a small molecule, with a molecular...
Why is the word “blog” spelled like “blawg” in the title? For the Aw! factor. Dogs, or rather, dawgs, are awesome. Some would say pawsome. 😁 And cute! So cute! Yes, they are! Aren’t you, boy? (Petting one right now). Look at this bloodhound below and tell us he isn’t...
“Hopefully this post is short enough not to contain longueurs.” Longueur Definition (noun): a long, boring section or a tedious stretch of time usually used in the plural form. “Drug development is not without its longueurs, but it is always exciting when we see...
The following is excerpted from a WebEx that EpicentRx gave in January. “Divert shields!” is a common battle cry from the captain of the USS Enterprise in the TV show/movie Star Trek when one part the spaceship is under “phaser” or ray attack, which if you’ve ever...
Move over, Dean Winters, the good actor who plays the part of the disaster-prone Mayhem mascot in those fun-to-watch Allstate commercials. Make way for an even better agent of Mayhem and Chaos that is played by bad actor, transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), a...
The most heavily fortified and militarized border in the world isn’t the one between North and South Korea, all appearances to the contrary. That distinction belongs instead to the border between tumors and their surrounding tissues. Chiefly responsible for the...
We asked the all-knowing, all-seeing Magic 8-ball - you know the plastic sphere shaped like an oversized eight ball that when shaken answers your most pressing questions with uncanny accuracy and speed - whether marijuana use is associated with head and neck cancer....
“Be patient with this definition of longanimity.” Longanimity Definition (noun): patient forbearance under stress or adversity. “Your longanimity in the middle of rush hour even when you are late for work is impressive”. Pronunciation: lawng-guh-nim-i-tee Longanimous...
Swear like a sailor, a stevedore, a fishmonger, a termagant, or a trooper? If you must. After all, as Mark Twain said, “under certain circumstances, profanity provides relief denied even to prayer.” Perhaps a more sophisticated and elegant way to curse is like an...
Along with “Remission Possible,” one of the new taglines on the redesigned EpicentRx website is “Enter the Epicenter.” Which makes sense - at least to us - on at least two levels. Firstly, epicenter means “dead center,” which EpicentRx lead therapy, RRx-001...
“There’s no controversy about the definition of eristic.” Eristic Definition (adjective): pertaining to controversy, argument, or debate. “Many harsh film critics bring an eristic perspective to their reviews; “Debaters and lawyers have an eristic mindset”; “Pundits...
Blogitamus, ergo sumus. We blog; therefore, we are. Or blogitamus, ergo hummus. We blog; therefore, we eat hummus. A lot of it. Either way, write on to that! Also, a blog a day…keeps the spin doctors away. Write on to that too! This is the reason for us to post as...
For those who think that the beloved Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy by JRR Tolkien is a work of pure fiction, think again. Below is an image not from one of the Peter Jackson-directed LOTR movies, but from a supermassive black hole at the heart of a spiral galaxy...
Show of hands, who remembers the children’s game, I Spy? (Time for an obligatory ‘80s reference: Anyone…? Anyone…? Bueller…? Bueller…?) For those that don’t remember, Wikipedia states, “I spy is a guessing game where one player chooses an object within sight and...
Summer is officially here, and so is the gun show. Not talking about Sean Astin, who plays Drew Barrymore’s steroid abuser brother from 50 First Dates - “it’s not juice it’s a protein shake” (lol) - and his ilk, but rather multitargeted molecular shotguns like RRx-001...
A fantastic, and seriously catchy song from ‘80s British-American rock supergroup Foreigner is, "Cold As Ice". If we had to choose one reason why many tumors are so hard to treat with checkpoint inhibitors (CIs) like Opdivo and Keytruda, it would be exactly this -...
“Hebdomadal is a literal word of the week.” Hebdomadal Definition (adjective): 1) happening once a week the meeting occurred hebdomadally; “A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread - a whole, instead...
The esteemed science fiction author, Ray Bradbury, who died in 2012, claimed, perhaps erroneously, as it turns out, in his famous post-apocalyptic novel, Fahrenheit 451, that 451 degrees is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. In the dystopian...
On a crossword puzzle, we came across this 5-letter clue: “But wait! There's more!” The answer if you grew up in the ‘80s like we did was immediately evident: Ginsu. Click on the video above to watch the so-bad-it’s-good infomercial for the Ginsu knife that introduced...
We have officially designated Pat Benatar’s 1980s take-no-prisoners smash single Hit Me With Your Best Shot as the official anthem for KEVLARx. This is the randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2b clinical trial of RRx-001 (nibrozetone) given as pretreatment before...
"We’re neutral about the word epicene." Epicene Definition (adjective): 1) weak, flaccid an epicene style of writing 2) genderless they is an epicene pronoun 3) androgynous Pat was an epicene character played by Julia Sweeney on SNL during the early 1990s 4)...
This is the third post we’ve written that riffs on Lady Carolyn Lamb’s awesome, reputation-defining epithet for her mercurial lover, the English poet, Lord Byron: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. The “Dad” in question from the title is an extremely kind, and doting...
One of the most successful YouTube icons or self-styled “influencers” of all time is Jimmy Donaldson aka #MrBeast with 245 million followers, according to Wikipedia. If that sounds like an insane number, consider that lead EpicentRx therapy, AdAPT-001, is Mr. Best, or...
We live not in an age of walls but of gates. Ever since the “Watergate” break-in over 50 years ago, the ‘flood-gates’ opened and the one-size-fits-all, overused suffix “-gate”, which is now metonymous with scandal, attached itself to all manner of coverups,...
After writing one of our absolute favorite blog posts (here), on Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, and the New England Patriots dynasty, it occurred to us that we had left out perhaps the most seminal and influential name of all - Ernie Adams. Ernie who??...
"The thrill of victory, the agony of effete." Effete Definition (adjective): 1) degenerate, decadent, snobbish, over-refined the effete, pampered aristocracy who wants things done for them; a group of self-professed, effete intellectuals; tennis is considered by some...
You’re entering the Spin City Zone! We wish accomplished actor, caring philanthropist, and genuine inspiration, the one the only, #MichaelJFox, born on June 9th, 1961, a Happy Belated Birthday! 🎂 His foundation, the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), which he...
How unintentionally ironic that the phrase “winner, winner, chicken dinner!” is used to celebrate a victory, at least in casinos, considering that had we lived 240-66 million years ago, carnivorous dinosaurs, the ancestors of modern-day chickens, might have exclaimed,...
Maybe the second-best impersonator that we’ve ever seen is Frank Caliendo, who sounds like a dead ringer for a whole host of celebrities and sports personalities such as Charles Barkley, John C. Reilly, Robert Downey Jr., Joe Rogan, Chris Berman, Jon Gruden, Adam...
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a rainmaker as 1. “a person who produces or attempts to produce rain by artificial means” 2. “a person (such as a partner in a law firm) who brings in new business also : a person whose influence can initiate progress or...
At #BIO2024, the Pharmaceutical Industry’s answer to speed dating, EpicentRx declares its relationship status to be “mostly single and totally ready to mingle.” Outside only of oncology in China, where EpicentRx has partnered with SciClone Pharmaceuticals, the company...
"Read this definition of plenary that is complete in every way." Plenary Definition (noun): 1) fully attended. 2) unqualified; absolute; comprehensive. Pronunciation: pleh-nr-ee Example sentences: “A plenary talk during a conference is one that everyone has been...
The MD Anderson tagline is “Making Cancer History”, which applies to sarcoma investigator and MD Anderson Associate Professor, Dr. Anthony P. Conley. The man of the moment, Dr. Conley is spotlighted in a just-released MD Anderson newsletter entitled Newest Research in...
BIO, which stands for Biotechnology Innovation Organization, is a signature biotech partnering conference that will take place this year from June 3rd-6th at the downtown San Diego Convention Center, a few miles from EpicentRx HQ. EpicentRx puts the “IO” in BIO: the...
The term, disruptive innovation, reminds us of what the late, great funnyman and real disruptive innovator, Robin Williams, once said about drugs: “When I was growing up, they used to say, 'Robin, drugs can kill you.' Now that I’m 58 my doctor is telling me, 'Robin,...
“BOOM!” emailed Dr. Anthony P. Conley to us after having received notice that he was selected to give an oral presentation on lead EpicentRx therapy, AdAPT-001, plus a checkpoint inhibitor at #ASCO2024. Actually, the “BOOM!” was bigger than that, both literally...
It is a real challenge to get an abstract accepted at ASCO, so this week in the lead-up to the big conference, ASCO24, we set ourselves a just-for-fun, and considerably easier challenge, at least by comparison: to write a blog where we use ASCO as an adjective, verb,...
Captain’s blog Stardate 5/28/2024 We’ve officially taken the plunge and launched a YouTube channel dedicated to video blogging or “vlogging” all-original EpicentRx-related content. After much back-and-forth with our dedicated PR and communications team, Ashley (“AT”),...
“Innovaaaation is making us great."Sung to the tune of the Heinz “Anticipaaaation” ketchup commercial from the 1970s, shown below.Disruptive Innovation noundis-ruhp-tiv in-uh-vay-shuhnDefinition: Any type of transformative innovation that “disrupts” and displaces an...
Just exactly how prestigious is it to be selected for an Oral Presentation at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO)? Very prestigious. Way, way prestigious. One statistic clearly makes the point: this year out of over 7000 submitted abstracts only around...
It is a question for the ages - and a long-running debate, which we hope to settle once and for all. Who on the New England Patriots was most responsible for the team’s historic number of Super Bowl wins and appearances, 6 and 11, respectively? Was it the most...
Chemical rings come in several different shapes. Triangle-shaped 3-membered rings like cyclopropane. Pentane-shaped 5-membered rings like cyclopentane. Hexagon-shaped 6-membered rings like benzene, which because of its doughnut-like shape would undoubtedly appeal most...
“Munchausen puts the “con” in hypochondria." Munchausen’s Syndrome noun moon-chau-zn sihn-droom Definition: to induce or feign illness in oneself. Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy noun moon-chau-zn sihn-droom bi prok-see Definition: to induce or feign illness in a child...