(Bronx, N.Y.) – More than 2,150 people from across the city, country, and world took part in the 11th Annual Runyon 5K at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, May 11, 2019, raising nearly $400,000 to support breakthrough cancer research by today’s best young scientists, funded by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.  Since the inaugural event in 2009, the annual Runyon 5K has raised more than $5.5 million.

“It is unthinkable that a doctor could tell you that there is nothing that can be done for your child,” says Damon Runyon-Sohn Pediatric Fellow Kathryn R. Taylor, PhD, of Stanford University School of Medicine. But that is the reality for hundreds of families who are facing a pediatric brain cancer diagnosis called glioma. “We now know that pediatric cancers are not the same as their corresponding adult cancers and may require different treatments. I chose to study the unique biology of pediatric tumors as a developmental disease because it is key to finding effective therapies,” says Kathryn. Her research focuses on how glioma cells use signals in the surrounding brain tissue to promote their own growth.

To help increase the number of physician-scientists, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation created the Damon Runyon Physician-Scientist Training Award, which provides physicians who have earned an MD degree and completed clinical specialty fellowship training the opportunity to gain the research experience they need to become leaders in translational and clinical research. Damon Runyon announced that six scientists with novel approaches to fighting cancer have been named the 2019 recipients of the award.

The five-year survival rate for leukemia has almost doubled in the past 45 years. Still, about 20 percent of children and more than half of adults with leukemia fail to respond to treatment or form drug resistance and eventually succumb to the disease. New findings published in the journal Cancer Cell from Former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Alejandro Gutierrez, MD, and his colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital offer hope to these vulnerable leukemia patients. 

Guest Author: Marissa Rashkovan, PhD, Damon Runyon-Sohn Pediatric Cancer Fellow

On my 14th birthday, my parents sat my brother and me down and let us know that my mom had cancer – non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma to be exact. At the time, I didn’t know what that was. 

Five Damon Runyon alumnae were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (the science “Hall of Fame”), one of the highest honors given to a U.S. scientist. This membership recognizes their distinguished and continuing achievements in biomedical research. The total number of Damon Runyon scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences is now 79. This is a milestone year with women comprising 40 percent of the 100 newly elected members and 25 foreign associates, the most ever elected in any one year since the Academy was established in 1863.

We recently hosted a Twitter chat with Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator, Joshua Brody, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to discuss his latest breakthrough -  a promising new cancer vaccine that activates the immune system to fight tumors throughout the body. While Dr. Brody didn't have the time to answer all the questions about his exciting research during the hour-long Twitter chat, the full interview is presented here. 

Former Damon Runyon Fellow and Board Member Elaine V. Fuchs, PhD, and Former Fellow and Nobel Laureate James E. Rothman, PhD, have been elected foreign members of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom. In July, they will travel to London to sign the book that includes esteemed members such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking.

Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Joshua Brody, MD, and his colleagues at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report a promising new cancer vaccine that activates the immune system to fight tumors throughout the body. This exciting new reserach was published in Nature Medicine.

As high fructose corn syrup — common in soda and processed foods — has crept into everyday diets, rates of obesity and diseases like type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure have increased. Now, Former Damon Runyon Fellow Jihye Yun, PhD, and colleagues have discovered another reason to avoid the sweetener: consuming the equivalent of 12 ounces of sugary soda a day accelerated tumor growth in mice that were predisposed to colon cancer.