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Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Luis Diaz will be giving a plenary lecture today at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in New Orleans. His talk, titled “Liquid biopsies and the early diagnosis of cancer,” will survey the scientific history and current state of efforts to develop minimally invasive diagnostic tests for the early detection of cancer. An oncologist who has long been at the forefront of this field, Diaz will focus on the technologies and strategies employed to capture and profile DNA shed by tumors.

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A team of researchers led by Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Stephen Hodi reported today the results of the longest follow-up survival study conducted to date on patients with advanced melanoma who were treated with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab. Hodi and his colleagues announced at a press event during the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in New Orleans that 34 percent of the patients treated with this immunotherapy alone in a previous Phase 1 trial were still alive five years later.

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Researchers led by Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Richard Kolodner have developed a new technique for sussing out the genes responsible for helping repair DNA damage that, if left unchecked, can lead to certain cancers.

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Ludwig Cancer Research released today the full scope of advances presented by Ludwig researchers at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in New Orleans, La., April 16–20. Research conducted by more than 70 Ludwig scientists will be presented in symposiums, plenaries and poster sessions, and Ludwig researchers will participate in several workshops and meet-the-expert sessions over the course of the Meeting.

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A team of researchers, led by Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Paul Mischel and James Heath of the California Institute of Technology, has probed biochemical signaling cascades within individual cancer cells to capture a previously poorly understood but clinically significant mechanism of cancer drug resistance. Published in the current issue of Cancer Cell, their paper shows that cells of the invariably lethal brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) begin adapting to resist therapy within as little as three days of its initiation.

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Ludwig Cancer Research and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) have launched a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of combination immunotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer. The international, multicenter trial is led by George Coukos, director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne and Brad Monk, director of Gynecologic Oncology at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.

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Sir David Lane, Ludwig Cancer Research’s scientific director, was elected today as a fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Election as a fellow is the most prestigious honor bestowed by AACR and recognizes those researchers who have made exceptional contributions to the understanding and treatment of cancer.

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A gene that is often lost in childhood cancer plays an important role in the decision between life and death of certain cells, according to a new study published in the journal Developmental Cell. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Ludwig Cancer Research in Sweden have discovered the process by which that gene, KIF1B-β, kills cells and thereby suppresses tumour development.

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Ludwig San Diego’s Paul Mischel has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Ludwig Cancer Research and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) announced today an agreement with the biotechnology company Targovax to evaluate its experimental virotherapy, ONCOS-102, in early phase clinical trials testing the virotherapy in combination with other, potentially synergistic immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors.

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Ludwig Johns Hopkins co-director Kenneth Kinzler has been elected to the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM), one of the highest honors conferred to scientists anywhere. He is one of 80 new inductees to NAM this year. The Academy provides independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation on complex issues related to medicine and health, and helps to inform public policy decisions.

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A team of Ludwig Cancer Research scientists has mapped out how a mutant version of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) known as EGFRvIII specifically drives critical processes that alter the reading of the genome to fuel the growth of the brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and—most important—how each process is linked to the other.

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Ludwig Cancer Research scientist Bing Ren has been tapped to play a key role in a major initiative launched by the US National Institutes of Health—a 4D Nucleome Program that will transform how we read and interpret the genome. The program is slated to receive $120 million over the next five years, depending on future appropriations and reviews of progress.

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In studying how cells recycle the building blocks of DNA, Ludwig Cancer Research scientists have discovered a potential therapeutic strategy for cancer. They found that normal cells have highly selective mechanisms to ensure that nucleosides—the chemical blocks used to make new strands of DNA—don’t carry extra, unwanted chemical changes. But the scientists also found that some types of cancer cells aren’t so selective. These cells incorporate chemically modified nucleosides into their DNA, which is toxic to them. The findings, published today in the journal Nature, indicate that it might be possible to use modified nucleotides for specific killing of cancer cells.

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Isis Innovation, the University of Oxford’s technology commercialisation company, and Ludwig Cancer Research are proud to announce the launch of a new spinout company, iOx Therapeutics. iOx Therapeutics will develop a novel cancer immunotherapy discovered through a collaboration between Ludwig Cancer Research and Professor Vincenzo Cerundolo, the director of the MRC Human Immunology Unit within the University of Oxford’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine.

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Ludwig Cancer Research (Ludwig) and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) have launched clinical trials evaluating an immunotherapy for the treatment of the brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), and a combination of immunotherapies for a variety of solid tumors.

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Ludwig Cancer Research announced today that Richard Kolodner, current head of the Ludwig Laboratory of Cancer Genetics and longtime Ludwig member, has been named director of its San Diego Branch. Kolodner succeeds Webster Cavenee, who will take on a new role at Ludwig as director of Strategic Alliances in Central Nervous System (CNS) Cancers.

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Ludwig Cancer Research announced today that it is opening a new Branch in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Branch will be focused primarily on applied cancer immunology and the design of novel molecular and cell-based immunotherapies. It will also develop technologies enabling the efficient, safe application of those therapies to as many patients as possible.

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A Phase 3, multicenter clinical trial led by Ludwig Cancer Research investigators Jedd Wolchok and Stephen Hodi shows that the combination of two immunotherapies—ipilimumab and nivolumab—induces more frequent responses and considerably longer progression-free survival in patients with advanced melanoma than the administration of either of them alone. The results of the trial, which confirm those of a smaller study similarly conducted in previously untreated patients by the same Ludwig scientists, were presented today at the 2015 American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and published online later today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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A team of researchers led by Ludwig Cancer Research investigator Luis Diaz has identified a genetic malfunction that predicts the effectiveness of response to a groundbreaking immunotherapy. The results of their Phase 2 clinical trial reveal that, regardless of its tissue of origin, tumors whose cells are deficient in repairing mismatched DNA sequences—and so preventing mutations—are far more susceptible to the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab than those that retain this ability. Their findings were announced today at the American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and will be published online May 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

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Ludwig Cancer Research previewed today the new findings that will be presented by Ludwig scientists at this year’s American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill., May 29 – June 2. Ludwig researchers will present recent data from early and late stage clinical trials and participate in a number of plenary and educational sessions.

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German biologist Theodor Boveri observed early in the last century that cancer cells often harbor multiple copies of a subcellular structure that he had previously named the centrosome. He was also the first to suggest that the extra centrosomes drive cancer. Biologists have since learned a great deal about the structure and many functions of Boveri’s “special organ of cell division.” But why cancer cells harbor multiple copies of this organelle—and whether they are “addicted” to having so many—has remained unanswered. So has the question of whether healthy human cells even require centrosomes to divide. Now, 101 years after Boveri aired his suspicions, a Ludwig Cancer Research paper published in advance online in Science today may have some answers.

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In studying the molecular biology of brain development, a team of researchers led by Ludwig Stockholm director Thomas Perlmann has discovered how disruption of a developmental mechanism alters the very nerve cells that are most affected in Parkinson’s disease. The results of their study, which took nearly four years to complete and involved the targeted manipulation of mouse genes to generate a model of the disease, are published in the current issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

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A Phase 2 clinical trial led by Ludwig Harvard’s Stephen Hodi and Ludwig Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK)’s Jedd Wolchok has found that the combination of two immunotherapies for first-line treatment of advanced melanoma induces better responses and far longer progression-free survival than giving one of those drugs alone. Further, the combination was effective in the portion of melanoma patients—the majority—who currently have few effective treatment options. The results of the trial, which compared a combination of checkpoint inhibitors ipilimumab and nivolumab against ipilimumab alone in previously untreated patients, were presented today at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research and have been simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Ludwig MIT researcher Tyler Jacks will deliver an address titled “Engineering the Cancer Genome” during the opening plenary session of the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on insights gleaned from mouse models of cancer.

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Ludwig Cancer Research previewed today the full scope of discoveries to be presented by more than 40 Ludwig scientists at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., April 18–22. Ludwig researchers will deliver presentations of their recent data and participate in symposia, educational sessions and meet-the-expert sessions.

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Two international teams of researchers led by Ludwig San Diego’s Bing Ren have published in the current issue of Nature two papers that analyze in unprecedented detail the variability and regulation of gene expression across the entire human genome, and their correspondence with the physical structure of chromosomes.

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Ludwig Cancer Research and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation announced today the launch of a $10 million research program to advance dietary interventions and technologies for the prevention of colon cancer. The new program, to which each organization will contribute $5 million over five years, expands an existing partnership between the two organizations to develop DNA tests to detect the recurrence of colon cancer in cancer patients.

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Peter S. Kim has been named the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine. Established in 1994, Ludwig professorships have since been awarded to a total of 15 leading scientists at academic institutions affiliated with the six U.S.-based Ludwig Centers. With this appointment Kim also becomes a member of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Stem Cell Research and Medicine at Stanford.

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Ludwig Cancer Research announced today an agreement with Agenus that grants the Lexington, MA-based biotechnology company exclusive license to further develop and commercialize antibodies against three molecules—GITR, OX40 and TIM3—that play distinct and important roles in immune cell regulation and have been identified and assessed as drug targets by Ludwig researchers. Antibodies that activate GITR and OX40 or block TIM-3 have been shown to induce potent anti-tumor immune responses in preclinical studies and could prove to be important anti-cancer immunotherapies.

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A team of researchers led by Ludwig Chicago’s Yang-Xin Fu and Ralph Weichselbaum has uncovered the primary signaling mechanisms and cellular interactions that drive immune responses against tumors treated with radiotherapy. Published in the current issue of Immunity, their study suggests novel strategies for boosting the effectiveness of radiotherapy, and for combining it with therapies that harness the immune system to treat cancer.

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A team led by Ludwig and Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) researchers has published a landmark study on the genetic basis of response to a powerful cancer therapy known as immune checkpoint blockade. Their paper, in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, describes the precise genetic signatures in melanoma tumors that determine whether a patient will respond to one such therapy.

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Ludwig Cancer Research announced today the appointment of Sebastian Nijman as Associate Member of its Oxford Branch. Nijman joins the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Oxford after several years as a principal investigator at the prestigious Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where he has developed cutting-edge technologies to explore the molecular interactions by which drugs—and drug candidates—exert their effects within cells.

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The nonprofits Ludwig Cancer Research (Ludwig) and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) announced today an agreement with VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, to conduct a clinical trial with motolimod (VTX-2337) combined with other immunotherapy agents available to Ludwig and CRI through other industry partnerships.

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Former dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine and pediatric cancer care pioneer, Philip A. Pizzo, MD, joins the Board of Directors of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Pizzo is a prominent member of the cancer research community with more than 40 years of experience championing programs and policies to advance the future of science, education and pediatric oncology internationally.

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Ludwig researchers Irving Weissman and Jedd Wolchok will each give a talk during today’s plenary session of the AACR Annual Meeting 2014, starting at 8:45 am PT. The session, dedicated to one of the most promising and rapidly advancing areas of cancer research and therapy, is titled Targeted Immunotherapy: Mobilizing the Immune System against Cancer.

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Ludwig Cancer Research previewed today the full scope of discoveries to be presented by Ludwig scientists at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting next week (April 5 – 9) in San Diego, Calif. Ludwig researchers will deliver two-dozen presentations, and chair or participate in several symposia, educational sessions and meet-the-expert sessions.

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Ludwig’s Webster Cavenee received today the 2014 Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research. Issued by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the award recognizes a single researcher’s sustained contributions to the prevention and cure of cancer.

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Ludwig researcher Jedd Wolchok has received the 38th Annual American Association for Cancer Research-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award for his significant and continuing contributions to the development of immunotherapy for melanoma and his application of the strategy to other malignancies.

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Cancer research in the U.S. got a critical boost today as the six Ludwig Centers at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford University and the University of Chicago received a total of $540 million as part of a gift from Ludwig Cancer Research, on behalf of its founder, Daniel K. Ludwig. This new funding ranks among the largest private philanthropic gifts to cancer research.

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A Ludwig Cancer Research study has uncovered an entirely novel mechanism by which glioblastoma (GBM), the most common kind of brain cancer, evades targeted therapies. Published in the current issue of the journal Science, the paper describes how GBM tumor cells essentially hide the signaling molecule targeted by such therapies, adding a layer of complexity to current models of drug resistance in cancer. The findings could have far-reaching implications for the therapeutic regimens currently employed to treat GBM and suggest alternative approaches that could improve outcomes for cancer patients.

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A new technique successfully takes on a longstanding challenge in DNA sequencing – determining whether a particular genetic sequence comes from an individual's mother or father. The method, described in a Ludwig Cancer Research study in Nature Biotechnology, promises to accelerate studies of how genes contribute to disease, improve the process of matching donors with organs and help scientists better understand human migration patterns.

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Ludwig Cancer Researchers find that glioblastomas that rely predominantly on the mTORC2-mediated pathway tend to have the worse prognosis. Further, their studies suggest that lung cancer cells, too, use this pathway to induce the Warburg effect.

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A Ludwig Cancer Research study published in Cell today identifies a common mutation that dramatically increases the risk for testicular cancer—and describes a likely molecular mechanism by which it exerts that effect.

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A team of researchers affiliated with Ludwig Cancer Research and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in the current issue of Nature Methods a dramatically improved technique for analyzing the genes expressed within a single cell—a capability of relevance to everything from basic research to future cancer diagnostics.

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Loss of a gene required for stem cells in the brain to turn into neurons may underlie the most severe forms of neuroblastoma, a deadly childhood cancer of the nervous system, according to a Ludwig Cancer Research study published in Developmental Cell today.

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An international team of scientists led jointly by the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Murcia describe a therapeutic strategy in today’s online issue of Cancer Cell that manipulates a mechanism driving cellular heterogeneity to treat advanced melanoma.

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The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Immune Design, a biotech company focused on immune-based therapies for cancer and other human diseases, today announced that they have signed a collaboration agreement to advance cancer immunotherapy research.

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A team of researchers led by Jedd Wolchok of the Ludwig Center at MSKCC presented data today at the ASCO Annual Meeting showing promising results from a Phase I clinical trial evaluating the concurrent use of two immunotherapies for the treatment of advanced melanoma.

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Professor Sir David Lane, an internationally recognized and respected cancer researcher widely known for his discovery of the p53 tumor suppressor protein, joins the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as its Scientific Director, commencing June 1, 2013.