TM Link of the Week: When Things Just Click

In San Francisco, the consolidated plenary’s first segment (after my chair’s update) will be led by Dr. Lee Ellis, SWOG’s vice chair of TM, and will feature two speakers on TM work at SWOG.

My first group meeting as SWOG chair, in spring 2013, featured a TM symposium led by Dr. Ellis, with Dr. James Rae, our executive officer for TM, as one of several speakers. And Drs. Ellis and Rae have been planning and providing cutting-edge TM content to SWOG members ever since, at Plenary 1 and beyond.

Venues have included numerous TM-focused mini-symposia, workshops, and retreats, not to mention events with industry partners designed to give investigators a forum to pose their questions about the latest assays, platforms, and other tools.

Another resource our TM leadership has been delivering more quietly to members almost every Friday for nearly 12 years now is the SWOG TM Link of the Week.

TM LotW was born in 2013, hatched from our innovation working group, led by Dr. Ellis. Part of that group’s charge was to scout out key translational medicine articles, sharing the ones deemed most potentially relevant for SWOG members.

This sharing was formalized in a weekly email communication.

The goal was (and still is) to send SWOGGIES a selected journal publication each week with high-value information on advances in translational medicine, biomarkers, study design, and other areas, ahead of when they might otherwise encounter these resources, and from a wider range of journals than most clinical investigators were likely to be subscribed to.

A PubMed search each Wednesday helps Dr. Ellis identify candidates for sharing, and he and Dr. Rae then conspire to choose the best article to highlight (sometimes two – on rare occasions, even more).

They especially look for papers that are cross functional and tumor-agnostic – not focused on just colon or breast cancer, for example, but applicable across multiple tumor types. They pull articles from a range of sources, some widely read by our members, others less well known. They try to select papers that are not behind a paywall.

For busy SWOG clinicians, the Friday link can help them keep abreast of the latest translational medicine advances and developments without having to regularly  and deeply scour a library’s worth of journals. The value provided is curation – having reviewers who know what will be particularly relevant to a clinical oncology researcher.

The email includes the citation information, a live link to the article, and the text of the article’s abstract. It’s also often a venue for conveying TM-related messages and news to our members, such as:

• previews of TM-related agendas for upcoming meetings
• links to slide decks or recordings following such events
• information about new or updated grant opportunities or resources 

On occasion, the authors choose a special publication, such as the tenth anniversary issue of the AACR's journal Cancer Discovery, and at times they’ll tack on a bonus link to a new TM publication by SWOG colleagues. They’ve even been known to report directly from the ASCO annual meeting, with results so fresh they were only accessible via password.

After TM LotW goes out mid-day Friday, we also post the link to SWOG’s social media accounts, extending its reach.

The first TM Link of the Week was sent in May 2013, with a link to a paper in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery titled “Advances in Targeting Cell Surface Signaling Molecules for Immune Modulation.”

Drs. Ellis and Rae have rarely missed a week since. As of spring 2025, they’ve reviewed and distributed to SWOG members roughly 600 curated TM publication links (more if you consider emails with multiple links).

The size of the distribution list – primarily SWOG investigators – has varied over time, but based on our email click-through stats from just the last few years, it’s safe to say that these emails have connected our members to selected articles well over 100,000 times in the past 12 years(!)

Clearly our TM leadership team’s curation and outreach has had substantial educational impact among clinical oncology researchers.

If you’d like to subscribe to SWOG TM Link of the Week, drop a message to communications@swog.org (every edition has unsubscribe options in the footer, should you change your mind). The pub is emailed out every Friday, just like another, more well-known SWOG publication. 

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Trial of the Week

21CTP.LEUK01: A Phase II Trial of Asciminib, Dasatinib, Prednisone, and Blinatumomab for Participants with Newly Diagnosed Philadelphia Chromosome Positive (Ph+) Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

This study is ready to go!

21CTP.LEUK01 is a phase II trial testing asciminib as part of treatment in patients newly diagnosed with Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who are aged 60 or older or who are not candidates for standard intensive chemotherapy.

Drs. Anjali Advani and Michaela Liedtke are study chairs.

A number of sites have already been selected to participate in the trial, but the study team is looking for an additional 30 participants.

All SWOG sites are invited to consider 21CTP.LEUK01. Earlier this week, an invitation with study details was emailed to SWOG site principal investigators and lead oncology research professionals. 

That information is also available at swogctp.org/trials/21ctpleuk01, including a study synopsis and schema, study calendars, specimen collection details, and a funding memo (as a CTP trial, 21CTP.LEUK01 will be conducted with no federal funding).

If, after reviewing these materials, your site is interested in applying to open the study, complete the linked feasibility questionnaire no later than May 16th.

If your site is selected, SWOG CTP will extend an invitation to begin the activation process, starting with a study agreement. SWOG CTP staff will be on-hand to guide you through the regulatory process as you prepare your site for activation.

Questions? Please reach out to protocols@swogctp.org