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New DiscoveriesNovember 7, 2018

Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Young Innovator Team Awards

Nicholas Arpaia, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '12-'16) of Columbia University, and his colleague received the $500,000 prize to support research on designing probiotic bacterial strains that find and attack lung cancer. The Young Innovator Team Awards were established in 2014 to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and foster leadership skills among young researchers, instilling confidence in them to drive breakthrough lung cancer research using a collaborative, cross-institutional approach.

New DiscoveriesOctober 16, 2018

New Class of Drugs for Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatment

Patients with metastatic breast cancer—when the tumor has spread to other organs in the body—face a terminal prognosis and toxic treatments. There is an urgent need for new ways to treat drug metastatic and resistant stages of the disease. Sarat Chandarlapaty, MD, PhD (Clinical Investigator ’12-’17), and colleagues, have developed a novel class of drugs that may help these patients by potentially stopping or even destroying breast cancer tumors.

New DiscoveriesOctober 15, 2018

Damon Runyon alumni elected to the National Academy of Medicine

Two Damon Runyon alumni were elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Azad Bonni, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’96-‘97) at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, was recognized for discovering fundamental signaling networks governing brain development and how deregulation of these circuits contributes to cognitive disorders.

New DiscoveriesSeptember 25, 2018

Understanding the Geography of a Tumor

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive and hard-to-treat form of breast cancer. Doctors have observed that TNBC patients with higher numbers of immune cells in their tumors seem to have better survival than those with fewer, but it's not well understood why. Damon Runyon Fellow Leeat Yankielowicz-Keren, PhD, and Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist Sean C.

New DiscoveriesSeptember 17, 2018

Blood Test Predicts Lymphoma Treatment Success in Days

One of the greatest challenges doctors face is predicting, which patients will respond to a particular cancer therapy. Ash Alizadeh, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator '14 - '17) and David Kurtz, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Physician Scientist '16 - '20), at Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new blood test to guide doctors when treating diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). This research was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

New DiscoveriesAugust 27, 2018

Novel RNA cancer drivers revealed in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Christine Mayr, MD, PhD, (Damon Runyon Innovator ’13-‘15), Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator ’13-’16), and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, report new results that suggest malfunctions in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing may be driving chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). mRNAs carry the information encoded in DNA, which is then translated into proteins. Changes at both the DNA and mRNA level can result in malfunctioning proteins.

New DiscoveriesJune 20, 2018

Muscle and fat loss may offer clues to pancreatic cancer

Matthew G. Vander Heiden MD, PhD (Fellowship Award Committee Member, Fellow ’06-’08, Innovator ’11-‘13) and colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and MIT’s Koch Institute, Boston, have found a new reason pancreatic cancer patients lose weight. They observed in mouse models that tumors interfered with the pancreas’ ability to secrete enzymes that digest food. Unable to obtain enough nutrients from food, the mice entered starvation mode in which their bodies broke down fat to survive.

New DiscoveriesJune 19, 2018

Damon Runyon Alumnus Receives 2018 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science

John Mendelsohn, MD (Damon Runyon Grantee ’72-’74), President Emeritus of MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, shared the 2018 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science with former Damon Runyon Sponsors Tony Hunter, PhD, at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, and Brian J. Druker, MD, at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Portland. Dr. Mendelsohn led the development of a novel targeted therapy: the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab (Erbitux®). His efforts resulted in its approval by the FDA for the treatment of colon cancer and head/neck cancer.

New DiscoveriesMay 25, 2018

Harnessing viruses to cure cancer

Researchers have long been aware that several viruses have an innate ability to kill cancer cells. Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’13-’16) and Jedd D.

New DiscoveriesMay 23, 2018

Five Damon Runyon alumni named HHMI Investigators

Five Damon Runyon alumni are among the 19 individuals named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators this week. These scientists were selected because they ask hard questions in uncharted territories of biology and have the potential to make breakthroughs that will benefit humanity. The appointment provides flexible funding of $8 million over a seven-year term for each scientist, enabling them to pursue provocative fundamental questions of critical importance to biomedical progress.