Current Damon Runyon Fellow Ian Y. Wong, PhD, has made a potential leap forward in cancer diagnosis with a tiny device (pictured below) that isolates specific cells more rapidly and accurately than existing tools.

When scientists separate blood and other fluids in the laboratory, they are often searching for a very specific or rare cell type—like tumor or stem cells— amid billions of others. As cell mixtures flow through Ian’s new device, the fluids are slowed and directed in such a way that target cells come into contact with antibodies that recognize and attach to them.

> Read the whole post: “New Device Makes Finding Tumor Cells Easier”

Former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, is back in the news with remarkable results from his latest melanoma study. He recently treated a patient with advanced melanoma, forty-two year-old Valerie Esposito of Long Island, with the immunotherapy Yervoy. Yervoy was approved by the FDA last year thanks to clinical trials led by Jedd.

Alone, it did not stop the slow growth of Valerie’s melanoma. After administering localized radiation, however, Jedd witnessed something extraordinary. Rather than the targeted tumor regressing, tumors all over Valerie’s body disappeared, an extremely rare result.

> Read the whole post: “Combination Therapy Yields Remarkable Results for Melanoma Patient”

Last month, Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Ralph J. DeBerardinis, MD, PhD, and Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, used a new imaging technique to distinguish which patients’ brain tumors have an IDH genetic mutation and which do not. It’s a remarkable leap forward that may spare patients painful biopsies and help physicians select treatments based on their patients’ distinct tumors.

> Read the whole post: “Damon Runyon Scientists Make “Major Breakthrough for Brain Tumor Patients”

Former Damon Runyon Fellow Pardis Sabeti, PhD, has been called one of the “top 100 living geniuses” for her unique approach to genetics and evolution. Adding to her accolades, Pardis was named a 2011 PopTech Science Fellow after being nominated by Damon Runyon Chief Scientific Officer Yung Lie, PhD. The PopTech program trains exceptional young scientists to become more effective at communicating their research to the public and to colleagues in other fields.

> Read the whole post: “Turning Exceptional Scientists into Exceptional Communicators”

Decades of research have had an incredible impact on breast cancer. Today, many forms of the disease can be treated successfully when detected early. Once a tumor spreads, however, the likelihood of survival begins to plummet.  That troubling reality is starting to change thanks to former Damon Runyon Fellow David E. Lebwohl, MD, and a recent Phase III clinical trial in which survival time was doubled for its participants.

> Read the whole post: “New Therapy Dramatically Improves Breast Cancer Survival”

A team of researchers in Philadelphia, including former Damon Runyon Scholar Mark A. Lemmon, PhD, announced that the recently-approved lung cancer drug crizotinib (Xalkori) could potentially be used to treat neuroblastoma patients. The most common cancer among infants, neuroblastoma is a disease of the developing nerve cells. Treatment options are currently limited to surgery and chemotherapy.

> Read the whole post: “Lung Cancer Drug Shows Promise Against Neuroblastoma”

One of the most significant obstacles in cancer treatment is drug resistance.  Many drugs have immediate positive effects on patients only to lose potency over time.  Because cancer cells have a unique ability to adapt, the ways in which they thwart sophisticated medicine can be different for each cancer type.  Scientists like former Damon Runyon Scholar Ramesh A. Shivdasani, MD, PhD, are working to identify how cancer cells develop this resistance and designing new methods to overcome these adaptations.

Last month, Ramesh and a team of researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute discovered how some cancer cells evade Erbitux, a commonly-used treatment for colorectal and head and neck cancers.

> Read the whole post: “Thwarting Cancer Cells’ Resistance to Treatment”

Former Damon Runyon Scholar Peter S. Nelson, MD, and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have completed the first comprehensive analysis of the advanced prostate cancer genome, identifying key genetic mutations that drive the disease and cause resistance to treatment.

While progress against prostate cancer has been significant, several forms of the disease remain highly lethal and stubbornly resistant to standard treatments.  The results reported by Peter mark the first time scientists have been able to identify the unique genetic mutations that distinguish advanced prostate tumors from each other and their less-lethal cousins.

> Read the whole post: “Advanced Prostate Cancer Genome Mapped”

Researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, including former Damon Runyon Fellow Hong Wu, MD, PhD, discovered that an experimental drug slows growth of ovarian cancer cells and increases survival in animal models. 

In a two-year study, Wu and her colleagues found that the drug NVP-BEZ235 hinders growth by blocking two critical cancer cell signaling pathways.  Remarkably, it also counteracts the resistance developed by many ovarian cancer cells to platinum chemotherapy. 

> Read the whole post: “Experimental Drug Slows Ovarian Cancer Growth”

Cancer research is undergoing a major paradigm shift in which scientists and doctors are increasingly able to use genetic information to personalize treatments for cancer patients.  At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in June, national leaders, including seventeen Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators, presented the results of promising studies involving new, targeted therapies that are transforming cancer treatment. 

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on this shift in the world of cancer research, Dr. John Mendelsohn, Damon Runyon alumnus and President of Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, said “A pattern is developing at an accelerated pace where we are able to match genetic information about a tumor to a new agent and get results.”  In short, scientists are better able to match treatments to individual patients.

> Read the whole post: “A Tipping Point in Cancer Research”