View New Articles By
Immunotherapy has saved countless lives but it is not effective for all cancer patients and predicting who should be using this therapy has been difficult. New results from Luc G. Morris, MD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator '14-'17) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues, now shed light on this dilemma.
In its second year, the Innovators in Science Award recognizes research excellence in Regenerative Medicine. Shruti Naik, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '14-'17 and Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist '17-'19) of New York University, received the Early-Career Scientist Award with a $200,000 grant.
Carla Koehler, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '95-'98 and Scholar '99-'02) of the University of California, Los Angeles, was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow for significant contributions in characterizing mechanisms of protein and RNA transport in the mitochondria. The tradition of AAAS Fellows dates to 1874 and comprises an illustrious group of scientists, including many Nobel Laureates.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CONNECT
1.877.7CANCER
info@damonrunyon.org
One Exchange Plaza
55 Broadway, Suite 302
New York, NY 10006
