Jeffrey Drazen
In the inaugural lecture of the UCSF Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture Series on April 19, Jeffrey M. Drazen, MD, plans to issue a challenge to biomedical scientists - especially those on the cusp of translating hard-won laboratory knowledge into promising clinical treatments.
The campus community is invited to the lecture at noon on Wednesday, April 19, at Cole Hall, 513 Parnassus Ave.
Drazen, editor-in-chief of the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine, will present, "COX-2 Inhibitors: Compass Lost in Translation from Bench to Bedside - the VIOXX Story."
In this and recent talks in other academic venues, Drazen has been using the example of COX-2 inhibitors to remind the scientific community of the high standards that research groups and individual scientists should maintain as they study the safety and efficacy of treatments.
Keep your eyes focused on overall outcomes, he advises. Take responsibility for the unexpected effects of the treatment you're testing - not just the effects you set out to study. Disclose all of the available data on adverse outcomes. Respect your patients, your peers who review research before publication and those who depend on the integrity of those reports.
While the media have focused on VIOXX manufacturer Merck and its struggles in the courtroom, in a series of editorials Drazen and his fellow editors at the New England Journal of Medicine have outlined the challenge presented by unexpected effects of the painkiller, which was shown to relieve arthritis pain with fewer gastrointestinal effects than traditional treatments, but later shown to raise patients' risk of heart attack and stroke.
When first discovered, the selective inhibitors of cyclo-oxygenase 2 held the promise of safer pain relievers and potential chemo preventative agents for cancer. In the process of translational research, unexpected effects arose, but it was hard to abandon the promise of better treatments in the face of potential adverse effects.
In editorials in December 2005 and March 2006, Drazen and fellow editors published and affirmed an "expression of concern" noting that authors of a 2001 clinical study included in their paper only a portion of their available data on adverse cardiovascular outcomes.
"Everyone at UCSF who conducts biomedical research, takes care of patients, studies health policy, or is concerned about maintaining the highest standards of scientific integrity will find Dr. Drazen's lecture of great interest," says Chancellor Mike Bishop.
The Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture Series has been established to bring to the campus several times per year a major figure in health policy to raise awareness in the UCSF community of the important health policy issues of the day. In addition to his public lecture, Drazen will meet throughout the day with leaders of the schools and UCSF Medical Center, as well as friends of the university.
About Drazen
Drazen was born in Missouri. He graduated Summa Cum Laude fromTufts University, with a major in physics. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and served his medical residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Thereafter, Drazen joined the Pulmonary Divisions of the Harvard hospitals. He served as chief of Pulmonary Medicine at the Beth Israel Hospital, cief of the combined Pulmonary Divisions of the Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's Hospitals, and finally as the chief of Pulmonary Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Through his research, Drazen defined the role of novel endogenous chemical agents in asthma. This led to four new licensed pharmaceuticals for asthma with more than 5 million people on treatment worldwide. In 2000, he assumed the post of Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. During his tenure, the journal has published major papers advancing the science of medicine, including the first descriptions of SARS, and papers modifying the treatment of cancer, heart disease and lung disease. The journal, which has 500,000 readers every week, is a leading life science journal publishing original research.
Source: Janet Basu, News Services
Links:
Drazen's editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine
Chancellor's Health Policy Lecture series
