Dr. Paul Chapman and Danny Federici

"I would like to personally thank Dr. Chapman, Dr. Brennan and the staff at Sloan-Kettering for all of their hard work and dedication to this disease."

-Danny Federici

Federici Fund Trial

The overall goal of Dr. Paul Chapman's research is to develop new and effective treatments for metastatic melanoma. His work has focused on three different approaches: chemotherapy, immune therapy, and agents designed to interfere with biochemical pathways critical for melanoma growth.

From Dr. Paul Chapman on the Federici Fund Trial:

"I am going to use the funds to conduct a trial entitled: "Genetic Variates of Response to Chemotherapy in Melanoma". This trial will be funded entirely by the Federici Fund. Patients will be treated with combination chemotherapy (similar to the regimen that Danny had originally responded to). Prior to treatment, all patients will undergo a biopsy to allow us to conduct extensive genetic analyses. We will then correlate the genetic changes seen in the tumors with whether or not the patients responded to treatment. We hope to identify genes that predict response to chemotherapy. I just finished a study in which patients were treated with a simple regimen – one chemotherapy drug – and we identified four genes that correlated with response. That was the first time this had been done in melanoma and has just been submitted for publication. This Federici Fund trial will be the second and will be a more sophisticated study. We will see if these four genes are really important or if there are other genes. The protocol has been approved by the Department of Medicine and I hope to treat the first patient in February. I'm very excited about this."

For more information on Dr. Chapman's research, Dr. Brennan (Danny's surgeon) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering, please visit www.mskcc.org