5 honoured for bettering lives

Posted in Local, News

MERDEKA AWARD: Surgeon who did country’s first heart transplant among recipients

KUALA LUMPUR: TAN Sri Dr Yahya Awang, who performed the first heart transplant in Malaysia, is among five recipients of the Merdeka Award 2013 announced by Regent of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah here yesterday.

The other recipients are education pioneer Tan Sri Arshad Ayub, Tan Sri Raja Muhammad Alias, who helmed Felda for more than three decades, pioneer zoologist Dr Lim Boo Liat and researcher Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr Lam Sai Kit.

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How new cancer drugs can skip randomised trials

Posted in News, World

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

In 2006 when doctors started testing a melanoma treatment made by Roche Holding AG on patients, they were used to facing slim odds — about one in eight — that the tumours would shrink on chemotherapy. This time, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

With Zelboraf, a drug that targets specific mutations in cancer cells, eight out of 10 patients in an early-stage trial experienced significant tumour shrinkage. Roche clearly had a remarkable drug, though it only worked for people with a specific genetic makeup.

Research like the Zelboraf tests, that fine-tune treatments to the genetic profile of patients, is fuelling a rethink over how new cancer drugs are tested. The promise: medicines that, in theory at least, can win approval more easily and cheaply.

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