Professor BANG Yung-Jue presented his clinical trial on lung cancer patients at the Prestigious Plenary Session of the 2010 Annual Meeting of American Society of Oncology (ASCO).

Professor Bang has reported that a new drug called crizotinib has been highly effective on one type of lung cancer patients.

It was discovered in 2007 that the fusion of two normally independent genes, EML4 and ALK, into one aberrant gene seems to drive the formation of tumors. People who never smoked or quit smoking long ago get lung cancers due to this gene fusion process.

Bang conducted the first clinical trial of the drug 'crizotinib' which was developted to block the process.

82 lung cancer patients whose tumors have the EML4-ALK fusion gene and were not cured by any medicine have applied for his trial. Bang reported that 57% of those showed their tumors shrank.

This study made Bang the first Korean who presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.

Professor Bang has conducted clinical trials of many kinds of cancer drugs since 1992. He is now teaching at College of Medicine and department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology.

July 5, 2010
SNU PR Office