Everyone touched by cancer knows treatments vary depending on the type of cancer. Now, with precision medicine for some cancers, treatments can be tailored to that cancer.

In this podcast, Dr. James Hamrick, MD, MPH, explains what precision medicine means for cancer patients and updates listeners on developments in testicular cancer treatments.

Dr. Hamrick is the chairman of the Caris Precision Oncology Alliance, known as Caris POA at Caris Life Sciences. He leads a global network of top cancer centers and research institutions dedicated to advancing precision oncology and biomarker-driven research, and he will tell us all about it.

Dr. Hamrick is board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hematology. He earned his MD and MPH in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina and completed his residency and fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Now - back to precision medicine. Here's what Dr. Hamrick explains in the podcast.

00:09:55
"When we treat a cancer, it's all about hitting the cancer, the bad part, and not hurting the rest of the person. And so the more we understand the targets we should be hitting in these tumors, the better we can design treatments that hit those targets and leave the rest of the cells in a person's body alone.

"What does that mean?

"It means fewer side effects, so more effectiveness. So when you hear precision medicine, think about this: this is where my doctor is not just treating me for cancer. Not just treating me for lung cancer, but is working to understand exactly what is driving my cancer and how can we best target that so I have the best outcome, meaning we can kill those cancer cells, right?

"And the fewest side effects. That's really precision oncology. Biomarkers bio. We all know from high school biology class that the life sciences markers are the targets. So these are the targets that we can now use at Caris and other vendors. We can say, hey, that's the problem here.

"It's not just one testicular cell that went bad; it's one that has this certain molecular profile. So I tell patients: You should ask your doctors, Hey, what biomarkers do we care about? What is important? What are we targeting? What's valuable here?

"And that's part of becoming fluent in the language of your cancer, which, as many caregivers know, is really important."

Dr. Hamrick talks more about testicular cancer and the need to find genetic biomarkers for it. He explains that and related research about testicular and other types of cancer in this episode of Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer from the Max Mallory Foundation.

Links:
Caris Precision Oncology Alliance - Caris POA
https://www.carislifesciences.com/partners/caris-precision-oncology-alliance/

James Hamrick, MD, MPH
https://www.carislifesciences.com/bio/james-hamrick-md-mph/

Max Mallory Foundation
https://www.maxmalloryfoundation.com

Don't Give Up on Testicular Cance

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