- Alternative Medicine
- Mesothelioma Cure
- Mesothelioma Research
- Mesothelioma Doctors
- Mesothelioma Cancer Centers
- Mesothelioma Clinical Trials
Over 30 Billion dollars in trust fund money has been set aside for asbestos victims.
Get a Free copy of Surviving Mesothelioma, Lean on Me, or 100 Questions & Answers About Mesothelioma
Mesolink.org now offeres Free Assistance with VA Claims and other benefits.
Dr. Raffit Hassan
Contact Information
- 10 Center Drive, Building 37, Room 5116, Bethesda, MD
- (301) 451-8742
- hassanr@mail.nih.gov
Dr. Raffit Hassan is a medical oncologist who received his fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1997. After a period on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma, he went back to the NCI as a researcher in 2002. He is currently a senior investigator, as well as the Head of the Solid Tumor Immunotherapy Section at the Molecular Biology Laboratory at NCI in Bethesda, Maryland.
Before completing his residency and fellowship with the NCI, Dr. Hassan received his medical degree from the Government Medical School in Jammu and Kashmir on the Indian subcontinent. Dr. Hassan is board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hematology.
As a member of the Science Advisory Board, Dr. Hassan is extremely interested in finding new and improved treatments for malignant mesothelioma, including vaccines and therapies that use a combination of drugs. His work in the laboratory is also exploring ways to identify biomarkers for mesothelioma that can help with early detection of the disease and follow-up. In late 2009, he organized an international meeting on peritoneal mesotheliomas, to address the issues of new treatments and early detection using biomarkers.
Dr. Hassan’s clinical research focuses on evaluating new drugs for cancer treatment, specifically on immunotoxins that are developed to target certain types of tumors. These particular tumors excrete a protein and are usually connected with ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma. This protein is called mesothelin and is present in normal mesothelial cells (the cells in the lining of the chest). In the case of mesothelioma, too much of this protein is expressed from the tumor. Dr. Hassan’s research uses an immunotoxin to target the mesothelin.
Dr. Hassan and the National Cancer Institute are conducting a clinical trial to test this particular immunotoxin. He feels the trial is important for patients with inoperable mesothelioma. These patients are usually treated with a combination of chemotherapy agents that are able to delay the disease for a short period. Even with this treatment, however, most patients die within two years. The therapy used in Dr. Hassan’s clinical trial combines his immunotoxin with chemotherapy and should lead to increased anti-tumor activity when compared to using chemotherapy alone.
Dr. Hassan has had many articles and papers published in well-known medical journals, including Lung Cancer, Clinical Cancer Research, and the American Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has received the American Society of Clinical Oncology Career Development Award and the National Institutes of Health Career Development Award.