Damon Runyon identifies today’s most brilliant early career scientists and funds their innovative cancer research.
- Today’s Promising Areas of Cancer Research
- What is Cancer?
- A Broken Pipeline?
A Generation of Science at Risk
- ARISE Report
Early Career Scientists and High-Risk, High Reward Research - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer (And How To Win It)
Clifton Leaf - Fortune Magazine
October 13, 2009 > Defining the role of PTEN in development of malignant nerve tumors
Hong Wu, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ‘92-‘95, Former Sponsor) of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, demonstrated that the loss or reduction of the tumor suppressor gene PTEN is involved in the transformation of benign nerve tumors called neurofibromas into a deadly form of sarcoma, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. In the future, the researchers plan to screen drugs that may be able to target the PTEN pathway and block signals that instruct cells to change from a benign state to a malignant one. These findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.