Patricia LoRusso, D.O., a professor of Internal Medicine for the Wayne State University School of Medicine and medical director of Phase I Clinical Trials and Multidisciplinary Team Leader of Phase I Clinical Trials at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, is the principle corresponding author of an article posted on Clinical Cancer Research online. The article is part of a series of contributions about Phase I clinical trials.

In “An Overview of the Optimal Planning, Design, and Conduct of Phase I Studies of New Therapeutics,” Dr. LoRusso shares authorship with Scott A. Boerner, M.S., research assistant in Internal Medicine at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, and Lesley Seymour, M.D., Ph.D., of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

“Phase I clinical trials represent the first step in bringing promising new treatments from the laboratory to the clinic. Although the importance of phase I clinical trials is widely recognized, there is currently no consensus among the scientific, medical, and statistical communities on how best to do these studies in humans,” the article states. “With the advent of targeted therapies, it has become evident that we need to tailor the design of phase I studies for the particular drug class under investigation and any endpoints that are being defined.”

The Karmanos Cancer Institute has one of only 14 National Cancer Institute-funded Phase I programs in the country, and is the only such program in Michigan.

Click here to read the article in Clinical Cancer Research.