Damon Runyon News

View New Articles By

News

New DiscoveriesAugust 23, 2021

Genetic drivers of rare lymphoma identified, including two new cancer genes

A range of genetic disturbances can result in the same type of cancer, the way an off-tasting dish might result from any number of bad ingredients or missteps in the preparation process. Often, variation in clinical features—tumor appearance, location, behavior—is what defines cancer subtypes, while the genetic origins of each subtype remain unclear. But to make sense of this variation, and thus refine diagnosis and develop more precise treatments, researchers must trace these clinical features back to their genetic origins.

New DiscoveriesAugust 15, 2021

Treating kidney cancer by blocking cholesterol uptake

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), which accounts for over 75% of kidney cancer diagnoses, gets its name from how the tumor cells look under a microscope. Their clear appearance, as if the tissue were studded with air bubbles, is due to an accumulation of cholesterol in the cells. Studies have shown that ccRCC cells contain at least twice as much cholesterol as normal kidney cells, and in some cases up to 35 times more. How this accumulation occurs and how it contributes to cancer progression, however, is poorly understood.

New DiscoveriesJuly 12, 2021

Sugar-coated RNA molecules unexpectedly found on cell surface

Researchers at Stanford University have discovered sugar-bound RNA strands protruding from the cell surface, challenging the long-held assumption that these two types of molecules are kept separate within the cell. These newfound “glycoRNAs,” identified by former Damon Runyon Fellow Ryan Flynn, MD, PhD, may serve an important role in immune signaling. A shock to biologists across disciplines, this finding has particular significance in the world of cancer research, as the development of effective immunotherapies hinges on our understanding of how the immune system is activated.

New DiscoveriesJuly 7, 2021

How mistakes in RNA splicing can cause—or possibly treat—cancer

Immune checkpoint blockades are remarkably effective at exposing tumor cells to immune system attack, but only in the minority of patients with highly mutated tumors. While a high number of genetic mutations may seem like a bad thing, more mutations mean tumors produce more antigens, making them more recognizable to immune T-cells, and thus more susceptible to immunotherapy. In a groundbreaking report, Damon Runyon alumni Robert K. Bradley, PhD, and Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, offer proof of concept that introducing errors in the short-lived RNA—rather than permanent DNA damage—still causes tumors to present antigens on their cell surface, stimulating immune response. The hope is that drugs that induce such RNA errors could be used in combination with checkpoint blockades to shrink therapy-resistant tumors.

New DiscoveriesJuly 2, 2021

Avoiding selection bias in cancer clinical trials

Selection bias occurs when those chosen to participate in a study are not representative of the target population, limiting how much we can trust the study results. In order to quantify this selection bias, researchers have come up with a metric known as the diagnosis-to-treatment interval (DTI), which measures treatment urgency among trial participants. DTI, however, is not an ideal metric for selecting trial participants, as non-biological factors like access to medical care also influence the amount of time between diagnosis and treatment. Finding a biological basis for DTI would offer a more objective measure of clinical urgency, and thus be more useful in mitigating selection bias.

New DiscoveriesJune 21, 2021

Leukemia drug deemed safe for infants enters clinical trials, shows preventative promise

After successfully reversing leukemia development in mice and human cell lines, former Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD, and his lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are testing a novel therapeutic approach in clinical trials, open to patients as young as one month old. The drug, known as SNDX-5613, is currently being evaluated as a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but may one day be used to prevent the cancer from developing in the first place.

New DiscoveriesJune 18, 2021

From the lab to the clinic: Damon Runyon scientists report on new therapies at ASCO 2021

The American Society of Clinical Oncologists hosted their annual meeting this past weekend (June 4th-8th, 2021), giving oncology professionals from around the globe the chance to present cutting-edge research on new cancer therapies, ongoing clinical trials, and standards of patient care. Among the studies presented were those of several former and current Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators, whose research unites lab inquiry with clinical application.

New DiscoveriesJune 4, 2021

New potential target for immunotherapy identified

One of the many ways tumor cells evade capture by the immune system is by presenting proteins on their surface that signal “don’t touch me” to immune T-cells. These proteins are called immune checkpoints. Therapies that block them—known as immune checkpoint blockades (ICB)—are remarkably effective, but they only work for a minority of cancer patients. In search of more widely beneficial immunotherapies, Damon Runyon Physician-Scientist Gabriel Griffin, MD, and colleagues at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard are investigating other mechanisms of immune system evasion to target in combination with ICB. Specifically, they have set out to find epigenetic regulators—proteins that turn genes “on” and “off”—that play a role in helping cancer cells avoid detection.

New DiscoveriesJune 2, 2021

New prostate cancer models shed light on diverse clinical outcomes

Prostate cancer (PCa), second only to skin cancer in prevalence among American men, has multiple subtypes defined by which key gene was mutated early in disease progression. Molecular analysis of PCa tumors has illuminated these subtype-defining genetic events, yet it remains unclear how these early alterations influence later genetic events and, eventually, result in different clinical outcomes. While molecular characterization often guides treatment decisions in breast and other cancers, more clarity is needed about these pathways for PCa subtyping to be clinically relevant. At Weill Cornell Medicine, Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Chris Barbieri, MD, PhD, and colleagues are leading this charge.

New DiscoveriesMay 10, 2021

New approach uncovers epigenetic drivers of pediatric leukemia

While some cancers are known to be caused by mutations in key genes, genetic mutation does not always tell the full story. Epigenetic changes—which do not affect the DNA sequence itself, but rather the degree to which a gene is expressed—can play an important role in cancer as well. Such is the case with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of cancer in children, which has a low incidence of genetic mutation but often coincides with abnormal epigenetic behavior.