Dana-Farber and Deerfield Management are collaborating to create the Center for Protein Degradation is to interrogate and advance a large portfolio of advanced targeted protein degrader targets while creating a next-generation protein degrader platform
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown molecular vulnerability in two rare, aggressive, and hard-to-treat types of cancer, and say it may be possible to attack this weakness with targeted drugs.
In a study published online today by the journal Immunity, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Vanderbilt University and colleagues at other institutions show how machinery within immune system T cells responds to outside signals and activates the cells to attack cancerous, infected, or otherwise diseased cells.
In an ambitious effort to crack the code of several aggressive childhood cancers that lack definitive treatments, the federal Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot program has awarded grants of $2.5 million each over five years to two research teams led by scientists from Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. Only three grants in total were awarded for this initiative.
More than 60 years after the drug thalidomide caused birth defects in thousands of children whose mothers took the drug while pregnant, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have solved a mystery that has lingered ever since the dangers of the drug first became apparent: how did the drug produce such severe fetal harm?
Scientists at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) have identified biomarkers in melanoma that could help tailor immunotherapy treatments to maximize the benefits for patients while reducing the likelihood of severe side effects.
Premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and a high risk of recurrence who are treated with an aromatase inhibitor plus ovarian function suppression may gain 10 to 15 percent improvement in freedom from distant recurrence at eight years, according to a new clinical trial analysis reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
A test that analyzes free-floating DNA in the blood may be able to detect early-stage lung cancer, a preliminary report from the ongoing Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study suggests.
he Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways will be deployed through the Philips IntelliSpace Oncology Platform, providing clinical decision support to physicians via a patient-centric solution.
While a wide majority of oncologists do not feel informed enough about medical marijuana’s utility to make clinical recommendations, most do in fact conduct discussions on medical marijuana in the clinic and nearly half recommend it to their patients, say researchers who surveyed a population-based sample of medical oncologists.
The majority of patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) can be treated effectively. However, people whose disease recurs face a shortage of good options, especially because the disease is driven by a complicated mix of genetic alterations. Genomic analysis by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard now offers a better framework for understanding the disease’s many forms, which will help to predict individual patient outcomes and guide personalized treatment.
Bone marrow biopsies are the gold standard for diagnosing and monitoring the progression of multiple myeloma, but these procedures are far too invasive to perform at every patient visit. Scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, however, have shown that two ways to measure multiple myeloma DNA in blood samples provide highly detailed sets of genetic information that agree well not just with each other but with results from bone marrow tests.
A sizable percentage of elderly patients with blood-related cancers such as leukemia and multiple myeloma are apt to show signs of diminished cognitive functioning
A discovery by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center presents drug developers with an entirely new tack in targeting one of the most-wanted molecular culprits in cancer.
Two research groups from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have independently discovered a genetic mechanism in cancer cells that influences whether they resist or respond to immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors. The scientists say the findings reveal potential new drug targets and might aid efforts to extend the benefits of immunotherapy treatment to more patients and additional types of cancer.
• Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD, current chair of Medical Oncology, was presented with recognition at annual American Society of Hematology meeting
• Ebert is notable for his leadership in describing the genomic landscape of adult myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)
• Azacitidine reverses resistance to SL-401 in AML and BPDCN cell lines, researchers find
• Results prompt clinical trial of SL-401 and azacitidine in AML and MDS patients
Among younger patients newly diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), treatment with a combination of chemotherapy and a molecularly targeted drug significantly improves response over what is typically seen with chemotherapy alone, according to an investigator-initiated multi-center phase II clinical trial.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have carried out the largest genomic analysis of patients with smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM), a precursor to full-blown blood cancer that doesn’t show outward symptoms.
Although people with multiple myeloma usually respond well to treatment, the blood cancer generally keeps coming back. Following genetic changes in how the disease evolves over time will help to understand the disease and, eventually, deliver more effective treatments.
• Clinical Activity in a Phase 1 Study of BLU-285, a Potent, Highly-Selective Inhibitor of KIT D816V in Advanced Systemic Mastocytosis
• Study shows one of multiple ways in which novel targeted cancer therapies are now being deployed to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients with rare, advanced, or difficult-to-treat blood malignancies.
Daily low doses of the immune signaling protein interleukin-2 (IL-2) can safely benefit patients who develop chronic graft-versus-host disease following stem cell transplants, including particular benefit in pediatric patients in one small study, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Immunotherapy agents known as checkpoint inhibitors have shown considerable promise in patients with hematologic cancers who relapse after a transplant with donor stem cells. Preliminary results from the first clinical trial in these patients of one such agent – nivolumab – indicate that along with signs of effectiveness, it also produced significant side effects at the dose initially studied. The findings indicate a need for further clinical trials in this group before being considered for off-label use with these patients, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators report.
Like nomads who carry tokens of home on their travels, colorectal cancer cells that spread to other parts of the body appear to bring several of the species of bacteria that were their companions in the colon, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report in a new study in the journal Science.
Following a successful clinical trial involving Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for adult cancers was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, the only facility in the northeast to be part of the clinical trial, is one of a few locations certified to offer this new therapy nationwide.
In discovering how certain chemotherapy drugs cause the nerve damage known as peripheral neuropathy, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found a potential approach to preventing this common and troublesome side effect of cancer treatment.
Many prostate cancers, which generally are diagnosed in older men, are "indolent," slow-growing tumors that aren't destined to be fatal. But some tumors are prone to becoming aggressive and spreading beyond the prostate, making them difficult to treat and life-threatening. Currently, doctors have limited ability to predict which newly diagnosed tumors will progress slowly and which will probably undergo dangerous spread.
• Study explains why CDK4/6 inhibitors can shrink tumor in some advanced breast cancers
• CDK4/6 inhibitors trigger the immune system to attack tumor cells
• CDK4/6 inhibitors can also enhance anti-cancer effect of immunotherapy agents
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is pleased to announce the opening of the new Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living, underscoring Dana-Farber’s commitment to providing cutting-edge patient therapies and support for the “whole person” during and after treatment. Increasing data has indicated that integrative therapies can help alleviate side effects of cancer therapy.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded four Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers with Outstanding Investigator Awards (OIA) for ongoing progressive research within their respective areas of study.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has named Lesley Solomon to the newly-created position of senior vice president for innovation and chief innovation officer. Solomon has been serving as executive director of the Brigham Innovation Hub at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and director of strategy and innovation in the Brigham Research Institute.
A targeted drug whose clinical testing was led by Richard Stone, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has become the first new treatment for newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in more than 25 years.
Karen Burns White, Deputy Associate Director of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center’s (DF/HCC) Initiative to Eliminate Cancer Disparities (IECD) since 2001, has been honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the 2017 recipient of the society’s Reducing Health Disparities Award. The honor recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to reducing health disparities due to race, socioeconomic status, age, education, or sexual orientation.
The Global Health Catalyst Cancer Summit is an annual event that provides a forum for global health stakeholders to network, share knowledge and strengthen high-impact international collaborations that save lives while reducing global health disparities. Participants at the GHC Summit come from all across North America, Europe, Africa, and other impacted nations. Participants include leaders from the World Health Organization, World Bank Group, policy makers, Diaspora organizations, community leaders, U.S. congressional representatives, internationally recognized physicians and researchers, industry, professional sports celebrities and other cancer advocates.
For the fifth time in five years, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has been recognized as a leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equity by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation. The distinction is achieved through evaluation by the Healthcare Equality Index (HEI), an annual survey that measures inclusive policies and practices related to LGBT patients, visitors, and staff at nearly 600 medical facilities nationwide.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report a number of patients in a small study with RAS-driven lung, ovarian, and thyroid cancers got long-term clinical benefit from a combination of two drugs that targeted molecular pathways controlled by the RAS gene.
New Dana-Farber study shows patients with platinum resistant ovarian cancer who wouldn’t be expected to respond to a PARP inhibitor had partial shrinkage of their tumor with the addition of a kinase inhibitor.
New research suggests that some patients with head and neck cancers can benefit by continuing treatment with an immunotherapy drug after their tumors show signs of enlargement according to investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other organizations.
David M. Livingston, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has won a major award for discoveries in cancer research from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Judy E. Garber, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been honored by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) for outstanding achievement in clinical cancer research.
In a new study in the journal Nature, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report that a compound able to reverse the allegiance of innate immune system cells – turning them from tumor enablers into tumor opponents – caused breast tumors in mice to shrink and withdraw from distant metastases.
In a significant advance in improving the safety of donor stem cell transplants, a major clinical trial led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has shown that a novel agent can protect against the most common viral infection that patients face after transplantation.
A single blood test and basic information about a patient’s medical status can indicate which patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) are likely to benefit from a stem cell transplant, according to new research by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute led a study that provides some of the strongest evidence to date that microorganisms living in the large intestine can serve as a link between diet and certain types of colorectal cancer.