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In 2022, the FDA approved the first therapy to target human leukocyte antigen (HLA), which has been implicated in a variety of cancers. (The approved drug, tebentafusp, treats uveal melanoma, an eye cancer.) Last year, another HLA-targeted therapy received FDA approval for the treatment of a sarcoma. There are now a plethora of clinical trials open to patients who are HLA-positive.
Enteroendocrine cells, which line the wall of the gut, secrete hormones that regulate glucose levels, food intake, and stomach emptying. Abnormal activity of these cells can cause gastrointestinal disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), as well as intestinal tumors.
Kheewoong Baek, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been named this year’s Damon Runyon-Meghan E. Raveis Fellow. This award honors former Damon Runyon Board Member Meghan Raveis, who tragically passed in a car accident in 2023.
Translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC) is a type of kidney cancer that arises when a gene called TFE3 on the X chromosome fuses with another gene on either the X chromosome or an autosome, as non-sex chromosomes are called. Unlike most kidney cancers, tRCC occurs mainly in female individuals, though why this is the case has never been clear. Now, a new study from Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator Srinivas R.
Patients with kidney disease who are undergoing dialysis often need to take a drug called a calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) agonist to regain normal calcium levels in their blood. Unfortunately, inhibiting CaSR can sometimes reduce calcium levels too much, resulting in a condition known as hypocalcemia that carries serious adverse side effects. A major question in pharmacology, then, is how to modulate CaSR activity such that patients receive the benefits and not the risks.
Metastatic tumors, which arise when a cancer spreads from the original tissue throughout the body, tend to be less responsive to therapy than primary tumors. Metastasis is often lethal for this reason, accounting for over 90 percent of cancer deaths. But given that primary and metastatic tumors within the same patient have the same genetic mutations, it is not clear why metastatic tumors are more aggressive.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Cassian Yee, MD, runs his lab, is home to the Moon Shots program, a cancer research initiative inspired by America's drive toward space in the 1960s. Recently, Dr. Yee and his colleagues announced a project that combines these two ambitions: sending T cells into space to inform the development of new cancer treatments.
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