How do you spell mouth? As above, right? Yes, unless you develop severe oral mucositis (SOM) from the treatment of head and neck cancer in which case that spelling - and pronunciation - definitively changes to “m-o-w-t-h”. The o-w is for OW!!!!! As in OW, THAT REALLY,...
The KEVLARx Bullet Train has finally left the station. Tickets please. Final destination: head-and-neck cancer with stops at several top-notch clinical trial sites and institutions along the way. These sites are the following, with more coming soon: The Ohio State...
“Distaff? What about datstaff?” Distaff Definition (noun): a stick around which wool is wound for spinning. Definition (adjective): of or concerning women. Pronunciation: dist-aaf Example sentences: “Distaff is an old word that appears in...
All aboard the KEVLARx bullet train! Destination: head and neck cancer (HNC) without a stop, hopefully, at severe oral mucositis. En route over the following week, as a quick, handy reference, watch for a series of “bullet blogs” with fast facts on RRx-001...
A British slang word (you know how we absolutely love the Brits - that’s true AE), which may derive from the French word blaguer, to joke, blag means to bluff, fib, con, or bs. Quintessential blaggers - not bloggers note the distinction - are lawyers, salesmen,...
Happy early “May the 4th Be With You” aka #StarWarsDay. If fans of Star Trek are called Trekkies, or Trekkers, fans of Lord of the Rings are called Tolkienites or Ringers, and fans of Harry Potter are called Potterheads, then what is the equivalent for Star Wars fans?...
In artillery and naval gunfire support, the term “danger close” indicates proximity to an intended target that puts friendly forces at risk. It is a warning for them to get out of Dodge ASAP. However, with the EpicentRx lead oncolytic virus, AdAPT-001, that is armed...
LICE! Ugh! #Gross! #Disgusting! #Horrible! Or, dare we say it, #lousy! For most parents a plague of locusts, waves of frogs, a pestilence of boils, or three days of uninterrupted darkness are preferable to a lice infestation, which is their - and let’s face it...
“Because the TV show, The Conners, retconned the past of the original show, Rosanne, so many times it would have been better if the showrunners had simply called it The RetConners.” 😂 Retcon noun ret-kon Definition: Revision of the...
Most. Decadent. Ice. Cream. Ever. Rocky Road brings together the best of several worlds: creamy chocolate ice cream, crunchy almonds, and chewy marshmallows. The secret to life? Keep calm and eat Rocky Road. Right?! Unfortunately, this isn’t a post about ice cream. On...
Poor Richard’s Almanac was an annual compendium of pithy proverbs and prognostications written and published by Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, under the pseudonym of Poor Richard. One of the most famous proverbs is, “Lost time is never found again.” So true,...
“I stress. You stress. We all scream for eustress.” Eustress Definition (noun): a positive or beneficial form of stress. It is the opposite of distress or negative stress. Pronunciation: yoo-stress Example sentences: “Exercise is a form of...
“Wound up,” “stressed out,” “burned out,” “tied up in knots,” “on pins and needles,” “on eggshells,” “tensions are running high,” “I’m pulling my hair out,” “can’t take it anymore” etc. The English language has about 100 different ways to talk about the harmful...
Here is our list for the top 10 Greatest Debates in history (feel free to weigh in): 1. Creation vs. Evolution 2. Free Will vs. Destiny 3. Nature vs. Nurture 4. Pen vs. Sword 5. The Chicken vs. the Egg 6. Albert Einstein vs. Niels Bohr 7. Lincoln vs. Douglas 8. Cats...
From time to time in this space, we will apply the phrase “Hot or Not?” to tumors from cases that we know or read about. This is clinically relevant because tumors that are hot or immune-infiltrated tend to respond better to therapies. It is the goal of EpicentRx lead...
Not too long ago, we met Steve Young. Not the Steve Young, mind you, the Hall of Famer who quarterbacked the legendary San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl in 1994, but another Steve Young. Steven Young, to be precise, who, from our perspective, quarterbacks a...
Tax evasion is much in the news of late. Penalties for it are harsh and may include fines or, imprisonment, or both, as several celebrities can attest to. Safe to assume they share - or at least can relate to - the darkly satirical anti-tax sentiment from the famous...
“Don’t turn up your nose at Nosism." Nosism noun NO-siz-em Definition: to refer to oneself as “we,” which royals are known to do. Example sentences: “Nosism is a rare word, but it’s use is not, as exemplified by the EpicentRx blog posts, which are written by one...
At the AACR conference in San Diego, Drs. Tony Reid, CEO of EpicentRx, and Anthony P. Conley, a sarcoma specialist at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), spoke with Biotech TV about lead EpicentRx therapy, AdAPT-001, which is currently under investigation in a Dr....
Here is a cardiopharmaceutical take on the recent eclipse, which started in Mexico and moved northeast from Texas to Maine, and into eastern Canada, set to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler. Several medical treatments are associated with...
Much ink/many electrons have been spilled to explain the admittedly complex mechanisms of action for the small molecule, RRx-001 (nibrozetone). Applicable words and phrases are “NLRP3 inhibition,” “Nrf2 agonism,” “NO donation,” and “vascular normalization.” A more...
Modern day gladiators, the best mixed martial artists (MMAers) like Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, and Fedor Emelianenko, shown above, are multidimensional, successfully combining stand up and ground-based combat to submit (“tap...
By: Bryan Oronsky, Ahad Javansalehi “Who wants to live forever?” -Freddie Mercury Introduction A common phrase that adults use with hyperactive children is “act your age!”. However, for hypoactive middle-aged and older adults, the best advice is “don’t act your age”....
“Aesculapian, heal thyself.” The caduceus (left) vs. the Rod of Aesculapius (right) Aesculapian adjective and noun es-kal-ay-pee-an Definition: adj: medical; medicinal. noun: a physician; doctor Example sentence: “In the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the main...
If we were to describe Dr. Tony Reid, CEO, and founder of EpicentRx, whip-smart Professor Emeritus of Gastrointestinal (GI) Oncology at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), and all-around great, great person, really and truly he is, in a single, solitary...
From the Spy who Loved me, Carly Simon sang what is, bar none, in our humble opinion, the greatest James Bond theme song ever composed, “Nobody Does It Better”. Change the opening stanza from “better” to “TGF-beta” and it describes not 007 but 001, as in AdAPT-001:...
By the time you’ve read this sentence, we imagine that another Fast & Furious sequel starring Vin Diesel as main character, Dominic Toretto, and some super cool muscle cars will have been made. Just kidding. Sort of. We read that 2025 will see the release of Fast...
One of the most earnestly endearing collection of essays ever written is entitled, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by the Unitarian minister and best-selling author, Robert Fulghum. The book published almost 40 years ago in 1986 but the life...
AdAPT-001 floats into a bar, encased in a cationic liposome, and orders a thimble of whisky, which is about all the alcohol that an adenovirus like AdAPT can tolerate before it disintegrates. Skeptically, the bartender asks, “You sure?” AdAPT-001 replies, “Absolutely...
“What do you call a Panda that betrays its own kind?" "A Quis-Ling Ling”. “What did Beyonce say when she found out Jay Z cheated on her?" "Put a Quisling on it”. “What did the geneticist say to the Quisling on Halloween?” “Trait or treat?” Quisling noun kwiz-ling...
No per-APS about it. EpicentRx is a definite for the American Physiology Summit (APS) from April 4-7 in Long Beach, California where the UCSD bioengineering lab of Dr. Pedro Cabrales will present 3 posters on its lead small molecule, RRx-001 (nibrozetone). The titles...
RRx-001 is a very versatile small molecule. Clinically, it is used as an anticancer, anti-mucositis, and anti-endometriosis agent. Preclinically, it has also been used to treat a whole host of other diseases and conditions, among them, stroke, myocardial infarction,...
“To Protect and to Serve” was the former motto of the Los Angeles Police Department. “To Protect and Swerve” is the motto of tumor-associated immune cells like macrophages, neutrophils, and T-lymphocytes that have deviated or swerved from their sworn oath to defend...
Pop. This is the sound of bubbles bursting throughout history. Tulipmania (1634-1638) in Holland. Pop. The Bull Market of the Roaring Twenties (1924-1929) prior to the Wall Street crash. Pop. The Japanese Bubble Economy (1984-1989). Pop. The Dotcom Bubble (2000). Pop....
“Below is a hopefully not incomplete definition of the term, forme fruste”. Forme Fruste noun fawm froost plural formes frustes fawm froost Definition: The incomplete expression of a condition that almost but does not quite meet the usual diagnostic criteria. Example...
The other day someone jokingly called EpicentRx a two-faced company - because we have 2 lead therapeutic candidates, RRx-001 (nibrozetone) and AdAPT-001, each with 2 main mechanisms of action. Point taken, but that comment prompted us to calculate the ‘actual’ face...
Pharmaceutical companies frequently boast about the “crown jewel(s)”, which refers to their most prized and precious assets. The crown jewels in the EpicentRx portfolio are RRx-001 (nibrozetone) and AdAPT-001. Figuratively speaking, we consider RRx-001...
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Literally, everyone, especially when the Big Bad Wolf symbolizes treatment-related toxicities. Two of the most feared treatment related toxicities are severe oral mucositis (SOM) during the treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) with...
In case, like us, you happened to wake up one morning and randomly wonder who or what the timeless rant, “Should I Stay, or Should I Go?”, by the English rock band, The Clash, was about, here is the explanation, courtesy of Google, from the former lead guitarist, Mick...
As the COVID-19 threat seemingly fades, a new and much more insidious pandemic has arisen to take its place: Zoom-itis aka the Zoomdemic aka Zoomaggedon. Rapidly contagious though it is, N95 masks are wholly ineffective and unnecessary against #Zoomitis - sorry Dr....
Anfractuous adjective an-FRACK-choo-uhss Definition : twisty, winding, bendy, convoluted, tortuous. Example sentences: “Axl Rose’s anfractuous snake dance”. An anfractuous road” “An anfractuous plot”. “The anfractuous sayings of Yogi Berra include “It gets late early...
Not to be pedantic or a “boar”, but in these weekly blog posts we practice nosism aka “we-ism”, which is the use of the “royal we” to speak about oneself. Nosism comes from Latin “nos” we + English -ism. Not to be confused with noseism, prejudice against large noses,...
On a recent team-wide Zoom call, Meaghan Stirn, VP of Special Projects, which is a nefariously mysterious title, if there ever was one, dared us to write a blog post on Hollywood Squares. This dare came after Jeannie Williams, Director of Clinical Operations,...
1. Knock, knock Who’s there? W.H.O. Who’s W.H.O? The World Health Organization. 2. Knock, knock Who’s there? Who. Who’s Who? A compilation of brief biographical sketches of prominent persons in a particular field. 3. Knock, knock Who’s there? Doctor....
In the wake of #KateGate, #Katespiracy, #FakeKate, and #WhereIsKate, owing to the mysterious monthslong disappearance of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, and a recent photoshopped family picture plus a possible doctored car photo with Kate’s barely visible face...
As any true fan of the Brad Pitt and Edward Norton movie based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name knows - and endlessly references and repeats, “The first rule of Fight Club is… you don’t talk about Fight Club.” The same was - emphasis on was - true of the...
In honor of International Women’s Day, which occurred last Friday March 8th, we recognize and applaud the women we work closely with, none of them named Kim, incidentally, who head up EpicentRx Team Possible and who make Remission Possible, the tagline that is...
A remake of the 1989 unapologetically over-the-top cult classic, “Road House”, is set to drop on Amazon in late March. To which we say, “awesome!” and “seriously can’t wait!”. The original Road House, a modern-day Western, has it all: a hellhole bar named the Double...
“A real brew-haha”. Q: “I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep this week and getting up for work in the morning. What can I do?” -Sleepless in San Diego A: We have a diagnosis: Daylight Saving Time itis (DST-itis), which we have blogged about here. DST-itis occurs...
“Struwweleinstein”. Strewwelpeter noun STROO-uhl-pee-tuhr Definition: : tousle-head Example sentences: “Einstein ... presented as a Struwwelpeter character, smiling from an aureole of almost electrified hair.” -Ronald Clark; Einstein: The Life and Times; Bloomsbury;...