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New UC Project Finds Roadmap to Improve Patient Safety in Radiation Exposure

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Choosing among cancer treatments increasingly involves determining whether tumor cells harbor specific, mutated “oncogenes” that drive abnormal growth and that may also be especially vulnerable or resistant to particular drugs. But according to a new study led by UCSF researchers, in the case of the most commonly mutated cancer-driving oncogene, called KRAS (pronounced “kay-rass”), response to treatment can change as tumors evolve, either when a normal copy of the gene from the other member of the matched chromosome pair is lost, or when the cancers cells evolve to produce additional copies of the mutated form of the gene.

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Scalp cooling can lessen some chemotherapy-induced hair loss – one of the most devastating hallmarks of cancer – in certain breast cancer patients, according to a new multicenter study from UC San Francisco, Weill Cornell Medicine and three other medical centers.   A majority of the study’s patients, all women with stage 1 or 2 breast cancer who underwent scalp cooling, retained more than half of their hair after completing chemotherapy, the investigators learned.

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Karla Kerlikowske, MD, and team recently published a paper in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that examined the role of common risk factors in the development of ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancers. The study sheds new light on how a woman’s age, weight, and menopausal status affect her risk for breast cancer. Dr. Kerlikowske discusses the findings below.

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Cancer is the leading cause of death in San Francisco and costs patients, families and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Seeing an opportunity to change this, a group that includes UC San Francisco (UCSF), the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), and health care and community organizations has launched the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN), a major public health effort to reduce cancer in San Francisco.

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A team of researchers led by UC San Francisco scientists has identified a new drug target for triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive disease subtype that has the poorest outcomes and accounts for as many as one in five cases. The findings are particularly noteworthy because drugs that act on the newly discovered target, a protein known as PIM1, are already in clinical trials for leukemia and multiple myeloma.

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The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 12 academic centers in the U.S. joining a large national precision medicine study that aims to improve survival for pancreatic cancer patients. The trial, called Precision Promise, is a joint effort between the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, cancer research and treatment centers, and the pharmaceutical industry. The goal of Precision Promise is to double survival by 2020.

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UC San Francisco scientists have engineered human immune cells that can precisely locate diseased cells anywhere in the body and execute a wide range of customizable responses, including the delivery of drugs or other therapeutic payloads directly to tumors or other unhealthy tissues. In experiments with mice, these immune cells, called synNotch T cells, efficiently homed in on tumors and released a specialized antibody therapy, eradicating the cancer without attacking normal cells.

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Three UCSF researchers have been awarded $680,000 in grants from Susan G. Komen to support projects in breast cancer research. The grants to UCSF were among a total of $32.7 million given to researchers in 23 states and seven countries for projects including research into metastatic disease, novel treatments for aggressive types of breast cancer, new technologies, and health equity.

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By employing the same tactics it used to drive policymaking from the 1970s-1990s, the tobacco industry has become successful in influencing pro-industry e-cigarette laws at the state level, according to a UCSF study published in the September issue of Milbank Quarterly.

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On September 9th, millions of people across the United States and Canada are expected to tune into the fifth biennial Stand Up to Cancer broadcast raising money for cancer research. Since 2008, SU2C has raised more than $370 million and dedicates 100% of funds raised to support collaborative research via its multi-institutional, multidisciplinary Dream Teams. Researchers with UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center have been involved in four Dream Teams and awarded a grant for innovative research.