Curated News: National Cancer Institute (NCI)

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Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Albany Medical College were awarded a $3.3 million grant over five years by the National Cancer Institute to use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve targeted drug therapy in HER2-positive breast cancer treatment. HER2-positive breast cancer tends to grow and spread quickly, but targeted treatments improve outcomes.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center have discovered a new nutrient source that pancreatic cancer cells use to grow. The molecule, uridine, offers insight into both biochemical processes and possible therapeutic pathways. The findings, published in Nature, show that cancer cells can adapt when they don’t have access to glucose.

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Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a computational platform capable of discovering tumor antigens derived from alternative RNA splicing, expanding the pool of cancer immunotherapy targets. The tool, called “Isoform peptides from RNA splicing for Immunotherapy target Screening” (IRIS), was described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) today expressed its strong support for President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s nomination of Monica Bertagnolli, MD, as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the following statement from Geraldine M. Jacobson, MD, MBA, MPH, FASTRO, Chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors.

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A new University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center study reveals more about changes that happen to cancer cells when they metastasize and identifies a promising target for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.Metastasis is when cancer cells spread from the primary tumor to surrounding tissues and distant organs in the body and is the primary cause for breast cancer mortality.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified four important signs and symptoms that signal an elevated risk of early-onset colorectal cancer. The incidence of colorectal cancer is rising in people under 50, making it important to recognize such signs.

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Prostate cancer frequently metastasizes to the bone and is incurable. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are working to identify new treatment options for this subset of patients. In a new article published today in Science Advances, a team of Moffitt scientists demonstrates that chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy is an effective antitumor approach in mouse models of bone metastatic prostate cancer.

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The complete “Top Doctors” list appears in the May 2023 issue of Connecticut Magazine. Congratulations to this year’s “Top Doctors” affiliated with Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center.

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Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigated neighborhood-level economic hardship and its effect on cognitive outcomes in children treated with radiation for brain tumors. The results imply that policies and resources providing support at a neighborhood level may help protect high-risk pediatric brain tumor patients from cognitive decline.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say they have evidence from a new study in rats that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) may be useful in reducing chronic pain in people undergoing active treatment with a common anti-cancer drug.

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Outcomes for patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma have improved over the past decade due to the approval of immunotherapies, yet still there is a subset of patients who do not respond to this type of therapy. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have been working to better understand how the immune cell microenvironment contributes to patient outcomes in hopes of identifying biomarkers that predict responses to treatment.

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In a new article in Blood Cancer Discovery, which was published simultaneously with a presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting 2023, a team of Moffitt Cancer Center researchers demonstrated a possible alternative approach. They showed that MYC activates a downstream pathway that chemically modifies a protein called eIF5A, and that inhibition of this modification process prevents lymphoma development and progression in mouse models.

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Investigators from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital found that proton therapy had efficacy similar to conventional photon therapy with fewer negative neurocognitive outcomes. The clinical trial may set the new "gold standard" for pediatric craniopharyngioma treatment.

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Vitamin D deficiency could be the reason African American men experience more aggressive prostate cancer at a younger age compared with European American men, new research from Cedars-Sinai Cancer suggests.

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A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered that co-occurring mutations in three tumor suppressor genes – KEAP1, SMARCA4 and CDKN2A – are linked with poor clinical outcomes in patients with KRAS G12C-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with the KRAS G12C inhibitors adagrasib or sotorasib.

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Investigators from Cedars-Sinai Cancer are collaborating on a streamlined clinical trial design in a study called Pragmatica-Lung.

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De acordo com uma pesquisa conduzida pela Aliança para Ensaios Clínicos em Oncologia e o Centro de Câncer da Mayo Clinic, pacientes com diversos tumores em um seio podem ser capazes de evitar uma mastectomia se os tumores puderem ser removidos enquanto uma quantidade suficiente de tecido mamário puder ser preservada.

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De acuerdo con la investigación dirigida por la Alianza para Ensayos Clínicos en Oncología y el Centro Oncológico Integral de Mayo Clinic, las pacientes que tengan varios tumores en una sola mama podrían evitar una mastectomía si los tumores se pueden extraer dejando bastante tejido mamario.

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Mutations in our genes can lead to severe problems, like colon or liver cancer. But cancer is very complex. Mutations in the same genes can lead to different subtypes of tumors in different people. Currently, scientists don’t have a good way to produce such tumor subtypes for study in the lab.

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Research led by scientists at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that responses to a type of immunotherapy called PD-1 checkpoint blockade in patients with advanced melanoma depended on whether or not they had previously received another immunotherapy – CTLA-4 blockade – as well as other factors.

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A regulatory class of human T cells descends from two different origins, one that relates to autoimmunity and one that relates to protective immunity, according to a new study led by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The findings, published today in Science Immunology, could pave the way for new treatments for autoimmune diseases that target the immune system selectively.

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The University of Texas at El Paso will undertake potentially transformative research on how specific risk factors promote pancreatic cancer development with support from a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers found childhood cancer survivors have higher mortality than the public, but survivors with a healthy lifestyle and fewer heart disease risk factors had lower risk.

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Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital comprehensively characterized oncogenic fusions in pediatric cancer, providing proof-of-principle for genetic engineering-based therapies.

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In this study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, interim results of the combination of cabozantinib, a VEGF TKI, plus belzutifan, a HIF-2α inhibitor, show promising anti-tumor activity in this pre-treated patient group. The results suggest that the combination might fill and unmet need and provides a rationale for further study of combining a VEGF TKI and a HIF-2 inhibitor.

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A novel approach to administer intrathecal (IT) immunotherapy (directly into the spinal fluid) and intravenous (IV) immunotherapy was safe and improved survival in a subset of patients with leptomeningeal disease (LMD) from metastatic melanoma, according to interim analyses of a Phase I/Ib trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

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With the aid of a near $3.2 million National Cancer Institute grant (R01CA277599) recently awarded, investigators from the state’s leading cancer program, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey,  and Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, both NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, will work to close racial disparity gaps in cancer care delivery by examining a novel approach to genetic testing and care based on community identified needs.

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Led by researchers at Georgia Tech, an interdisciplinary team bioengineered a synthetic tumor model to understand and then demonstrate how the tumor microenvironment impacts the effectiveness of targeted therapies for a specific type of lymphoma called Activated B Cell-like Diffuse Large B cell lymphoma (ABC-DLBCL). Their synthetic tumor model could change the game for designing and testing personalized cancer therapies.

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This study looks at what happens before the emergence of colorectal cancer mutations and finds not only evidence of fetal reprogramming that can initiate cancer, but also a protein, Sox9, that fuels that reprogramming.

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Patients who have multiple tumors in one breast may be able to avoid a mastectomy if the tumors can be removed while leaving enough breast tissue, according to research led by the Alliance in Clinical Trials in Oncology and Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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Kristin Rojas, M.D., assistant professor of surgical oncology at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been awarded a three-year, $375,000 grant to investigate the role opioids may play in breast cancer.

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Cosimo Commisso, Ph.D., and Susanne Heynen-Genel, Ph.D., have received a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to advance a new treatment approach for pancreatic cancer.

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Immunotherapies have greatly improved the outcomes of many patients with melanoma. But there is still a need for new approaches for the subset of patients who do not respond well to this type of therapy. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers are looking at new targets to help inhibit tumor development and promote antitumor immunity, one being the STING signaling pathway. In a new article published in Nature Communications, a team of Moffitt and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine investigators demonstrate that targeting the STING pathway with a combination strategy results in improved antitumor activity.

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The breast tumors of Asian, Black and white women have very different cellular, microbial and genomic features that could potentially be used to personalize care or predict disease progression, according to new research by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

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A new study finds some patients with early-stage lung cancer who receive a lobectomy do not fare better than patients who have less lung tissue removed.

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Custom-made to attack cancer cells, CAR T-cell therapies have opened a new era in the treatment of human cancers, particularly, in hematologic malignancies. All too often, however, they display a frustrating trait inherited from the body's own immune system cells: a drastic loss of cancer-fighting fervor known as "exhaustion”.

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Discrimination experienced by Black people can affect their health and increase their frailty, which can be particularly impactful for cancer survivors, according to a new study by researchers at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and colleagues at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. The researchers assessed frailty by a number of factors, including whether a participant had several chronic diseases, poor muscle strength and difficulty performing activities of daily living.

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Chatbots and artificial intelligence are increasingly becoming more popular to answer questions about health. Researchers studied one of these resources, ChatGPT, to provide incredibly valuable and well-timed insights into the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence in the context of cancer-related information. Are people with cancer and their caregivers getting accurate answers?

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In a Phase II trial led by researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, adding ipilimumab to a neoadjuvant, or pre-surgical, combination of nivolumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy, resulted in a major pathologic response (MPR) in half of all treated patients with early-stage, resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

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In a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers report that a new smoking cessation intervention increased the number of patients who quit smoking compared to standard cessation approaches.

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In a new study published in Nature Medicine, Moffitt Cancer Center physician-scientists, in collaboration with four cancer centers in the United States and Germany, reveal how microorganisms in the gut influence non-Hodgkin lymphoma patient outcomes to a type of cellular immunotherapy called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, or CAR T.

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A combination treatment that targets the immune system helps treat aggressive prostate cancers that don’t respond to conventional therapies.

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Patients with high-risk melanoma who received the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab both before and after surgery to remove cancerous tissue had a significantly lower risk of their cancer recurring than similar patients who received the drug only after surgery.

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A team of researchers from institutions across the United States, including Moffitt Cancer Center, launched a phase 2 clinical trial evaluating a new treatment option for this patient population. Their results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, show that treating resectable stage 3 and 4 melanoma patients with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab both before and after surgery greatly improves outcomes when compared to pembrolizumab given only after surgery.