Noted

Dozens of articles detailing results from the National Human Genome Research Institute's ENCODE (ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements) DNA regulatory project were published together (Nature 2012;489:57–74). Hundreds of ENCODE consortium researchers across the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Singapore, and Japan have carried out more than 1,600 sets of experiments on 147 types of tissue. Among ENCODE findings, more than 80% of the genome contains elements linked to biochemical function.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved enzalutamide (Xtandi; Medivation and Astellas Pharma), which attacks multiple targets in the androgen-receptor signaling pathway, for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who previously received docetaxel.

Researchers reported that the antibody–drug conjugate T-DM1 (trastuzumab emtansine) offers a significant increase in overall survival to patients with advanced or metastatic HER-2–positive breast cancer compared with a combination of lapatinib (Tykerb; GlaxoSmithKline) and capecitabine (Xeloda; Genentech). Roche, now seeking FDA approval for T-DM1, did not reveal the extent of the increase.

Despite years of global tobacco control efforts, 49% of adult men and 11% of women in developing countries use tobacco products, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (Lancet 2012;9842:668–79).

Mayo Clinic's Cancer Center will consolidate its Arizona operations in a single site on its Phoenix campus. A $130-million 3-floor facility, built above the first level of the clinic's proton beam therapy building now under construction, will be occupied in 2015.

Ruling on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 patent claims owned by Myriad Genetics of Salt Lake City, UT, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the patents on the genes themselves and on a method of screening potential cancer therapeutics. However, the court rejected the company's patent claims for using DNA analyses to assess cancer risk.