Dr. George D. Demetri on the Importance of Collaboration in Sarcoma

George D. Demetri, MD, senior vice president for Experimental Therapeutics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, discusses the importance of collaboration in sarcoma.

While there has not really been anything practice-changing recently in sarcoma, there has recently been a coalescing of the continuum of science: from the most basic discovery scientists, who deal with worms and basic mechanisms of DNA and enzymes, all the way up to the most clinical of clinicians, said Demetri.

There is an effort to make a true continuum between the basic scientists and clinical scientists, and the pediatric and adult oncologists in the sarcoma space. The changes in practice could not have happened without the advances in basic science, academic investigators, and the industrialists who are really trying to derive it to practice-changing methods, said Demetri.