AVAX Technologies, Inc., opened its Rensselaer venue last April. The Kansas City, Mo.-based firm was founded five years ago “to commercialize novel therapies for cancer,” according to Lorne Erdile, senior research scientist at AVAX’s East Campus location.

Specifically, AVAX “looks for therapies that are being developed in university laboratories and appear promising,” Erdile said. “Current cancer therapies have limited efficacy in most cases, particularly in advanced disease. Most of those therapies, like chemotherapy and radiation, have substantial toxicities. They attack all cells in the body and can cause nausea, hair loss, diarrhea, and other serious side effects. It is our goal to develop biological therapies that will be both more effective and more selective in targeting cancer cells.”

An autologous cell (AC) vaccine created by David Berd, M.D., a specialist in medical oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and a professor at Jefferson Medical College there, does just that. “Tumor cells are obtained during routine surgery, which is still the front-line treatment for cancer. Those cells are sent to AVAX’s manufacturing facility in Philadelphia, where they are treated to produce a vaccine that is sent back to the site of the clinical trial, to the doctor who is currently treating the patient. The cells are then returned to the patient in the same way that we immunize against influenza and other infectious diseases. That process primes the immune system to recognize and attack the cancer cells within the patient’s tumor sites,” explained Erdile.

This treatment, which AVAX has licensed from Thomas Jefferson University, “has been given to more than 400 patients, mostly for melanoma. What we find in melanoma is that patients who receive the vaccine show evidence of immune response and of significantly increased survival.”

AVAX already has one vaccine - the first ever for the treatment of advanced melanoma - approved for marketing in Australia. Noted Erdile: “For a number of reasons, including perhaps the hole in the ozone layer, Australia has a particularly high incidence of skin cancer. AVAX saw that as an opportunity to develop a vaccine. Through a joint venture with an Australian company, we have a manufacturing facility there to produce that vaccine.”

In addition, AVAX has purchased Genopoietic, a French biotechnology firm that has research facilities in Paris and a manufacturing plant in Lyon. That company “has been working for many years on a number of gene and cell therapies that could be used as the basis of creating treatments for different types of cancers and in fighting transplant rejections. We’re hoping to have them approved for marketing in some European countries and in the U.S.,” Erdile said. Currently, AVAX vaccines are in clinical trials throughout the United States, including at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and at Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie.

Erdile, who earned his Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Wisconsin and did post-doctoral work at Johns Hopkins, previously worked for Virogenetics, a biotechnology firm formerly located in the Capital Region. He and his colleague, senior research technician Darlene Smith, are currently the only AVAX staff at the East Campus, but that situation could change as the clinical trials yield beneficial results. “I hope we will expand,” commented Erdile, a recently appointed adjunct assistant professor with the University at Albany’s Department of Biological Sciences. “As positions become available, we would certainly be happy to look at Albany graduates.”

In the meantime, Smith and Erdile are forging a strong relationship between AVAX and the University - particularly through collaboration with the Center for the Study of Comparative Functional Genomics and with the Department of Biological Sciences. Those collaborative efforts, according to Erdile, should prove helpful as AVAX works toward one of its main goals at the East Campus: “to look at what we can do to improve the vaccine, in terms of both better clinical responses and a simpler manufacturing process.”

UAlbany Graduate Student Danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov
By Carol Olechowski
Graduate student Elizabeth Hamilton will always remember the summer of 2000. It was the summer she did what, for most dancers, would be a distant and unattainable dream: She danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Her feat is all the more remarkable because “the funny thing is that I’m not a dancer,” says Hamilton, who earned her B.A. in communications from the University at Albany last May and is now a graduate student in the Department of Theatre. “I’ve always had an interest in performance art, but I never categorized myself as strictly a dancer.”

The Staten Island native attributes her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to taking a movement class with UAlbany theatre instructor Ione Beauchamp. With her colleague Leigh Stimbeck, Beauchamp “works to bring together the worlds of movement, which is contact oriented - not at all the type of dancing people are used to seeing, - and acting,” Hamilton explains.

Through Beauchamp, Hamilton learned of a two-week workshop called the “White Oak Dance Project,” named for Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Company. “I took part in the workshop with the White Oak dancers, Baryshnikov, and other participants at LaGuardia High School in New York City,” recalls the 22-year-old Hamilton, who plans to complete her graduate work by Decem-ber 2001.

Among her memories of the summer, her first meeting with Baryshnikov is a standout. “I arrived for my first workshop early, and he was eating wonton soup. For a split second I didn’t realize that it was him. It’s funny when I think back, because I see myself in basketball shorts and a T-shirt. I was an athlete sporting athletic clothing among these dancers in leotards,” says Hamilton, who was a member of UAlbany’s cross-country and track and field teams as an undergraduate.

Baryshnikov, she adds, “was easy to talk to, and he and his dancers welcomed new ideas. I wasn’t so intimidated after a few classes. I realized that I already knew what was being taught because I had learned it in Ione’s class the previous semester.”

Hamilton is now rehearsing the role of Phaedra in Hippolytus, which opens at the Performing Arts Center’s Lab Theatre in March. Beauchamp and Stimbeck are producing the show, which Stimbeck adapted from the original Greek tragedy.

After graduation, Hamilton says, “I hope to continue performing. It’s a challenging career and keeps you on your toes.

“I consider myself lucky to have met Ione,” adds Hamilton. “By asking me to take part in this project with Baryshnikov, she boosted my confidence as a performer. I realize that I won’t be as lucky once I get into the real world of auditioning. I can only hope that someone else will believe in me as much as she did.”

Civil Rights Leader Lewis Honored Feb. 15
By Lisa James Goldsberry
The University at Albany will present an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Rep. John Lewis, U.S. Congressman for the 5th District of Georgia and an important civil rights activist, on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2001. The honorary degree convocation is tentatively scheduled for 4:30 p.m. A complete schedule will be announced in the Jan. 25 Update. The honorary degree is the highest honor bestowed by the State University of New York system.

Lewis will also serve as keynote speaker for UAlbany’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon, to be held the same day at noon. Both events are free and open to the public.

Elected to Congress in 1986, Lewis co-chairs the Congressional Urban Caucus and is a member of the Congressional Caucus on Anti-Semitism and the Congressional Committee to Support Writers and Journalists. In 1998, Lewis was co-author, with Michael D’Orso, of Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. The book, a firsthand account of the Civil Rights movement, received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1999.

For more than 30 years, Lewis has taken on major leadership roles in the struggles for human and civil rights in the U.S., dedicating his life to securing personal dignity and building what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community.” As a student, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Tennessee and was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which he helped to found. “No other United States elected official embodies the grand legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. more than U.S. Representative John Lewis,” said Carson Carr, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs and director of UAlbany’s Educational Opportunity Program. “He is a national treasure.”

In addition to the luncheon and convocation, Lewis will visit several classes during the day.

Men’s Basketball Rallies to Beat Harvard
By Brian DePasquale
Will Brand scored the go-ahead basket on an in-bounds play with six seconds remaining, as Albany rallied for an 82-78 victory over Harvard Dec. 2 at the Recreation and Convocation Center.

Harvard (2-2) led 78-75 with less than one minute to play after Patrick Harvey, who had 14 of his 24 points in the second half, canned a three-point field goal from the left corner. Albany (2-4) drew even on freshman guard E.J. Gallup’s three-pointer from the left wing with 16 seconds left.

Following a Crimson turnover, Brand scored in the lane off Sam Hopes’ in-bounds pass. Hopes, who had 18 points, then recorded one of his seven steals at mid-court, and sealed the verdict with a pair of free throws.

Harvard led throughout most of the game, and built a 62-51 cushion in the final period. Dan Clemente, who had 17 points and nine rebounds, and Elliott Prasse-Freeman (14 points) were the key figures for Harvard.

The Great Danes, who shot a season-high 53.6 percent from the field, whittled away at the margin, and caught Harvard at 73 apiece when Hopes scored in the lane with 2:35 remaining.

“What a great win,” said Albany coach Scott Beeten, who had seven scholarship players available on the bench due to injuries. “The kids showed tremendous courage; it’s easy to quit when you’re down. Will Brand led by example in the final minutes.”

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