News

Honors and Awards May 23, 2017

Rushika Perera and Roberto Zoncu Interview

To make breakthroughs against cancer, we need scientists willing to break the mold and push science in new directions. That is the goal of our Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award. We seek the top emerging talent in cancer research and provide seed funding for their new ideas.

In 2015, we selected a new Innovator at UC Berkeley, Roberto Zoncu, followed the next year by one at UCSF, Rushika Perera. Little did we know that they were married to each other. As they tell it, rather than Match.com, they had “bench.com.” They met working side-by-side at a laboratory bench at Yale University, spent some time as a bi-coastal couple, and now are building their own labs across the bay from each other.

Honors and Awards May 8, 2017

What Scientists Learn from Cancer Patients

Damon Runyon Fellow Elise C. Jeffery, PhD, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a dinner with prospective donors at the beautiful new home of Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation board member Cindy Sulzberger in West Palm Beach, Florida. Cindy invited several of her friends to the gathering, and they were all eager to hear about the work of Damon Runyon scientists, and the goals of the foundation. As I described my work to the group during dinner, I was impressed by their interest in cancer research. They had a number of good questions such as, “Will we ever find a silver bullet cure?” and “How much progress could be made if we spent an amount equal to the defense budget on cancer research?” Although these questions have no easy answer, they reflect the thoughts of those in the community who have been affected by this disease.

Honors and Awards May 1, 2017

'Celebrating Scientists' during National Cancer Research Month

May is National Cancer Research Month and we are ‘Celebrating Scientists’ who are working to cure, treat and prevent this deadly disease. Throughout the month we will introduce you to some of the brilliant Damon Runyon scientists who are pursuing innovative cancer research.

Honors and Awards April 26, 2017

NIH Funding Imperative for Crucial Life-saving Research

The following Op Ed by Ralph J. DeBerardinis, MD, PhD, a Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on April 14, 2017

THE WHITE HOUSE recently proposed slashing support to the National Institutes of Health, the federal agency funding thousands of health-related research projects in the United States. I direct a clinic and research laboratory developing cures for cancer and childhood genetic diseases. My lab runs on NIH funds, and I'm writing to outline why these cuts will be disastrous for our long-term prospects for health.

Honors and Awards April 21, 2017

The Future of Cancer Challenge

By Peter J. Turnbaugh, Damon-Runyon Innovator

For our 70^th Anniversary Annual Report, we recently asked some of our current award recipients how cancer will be prevented, diagnosed, and/or treated differently in the future. What can a future cancer patient, say 10-20 years from now, expect to experience? Their responses were fascinating, and over the next few months we will share their visions for the future on this blog.

Cancer is notoriously hard to treat due to the severity of side effects and the high rate of relapse. While one patient may show a miraculous recovery, the next may show very little response or have an adverse drug outcome. Polymorphisms in the human genome are important, but they can fail to explain most of the observed variation in treatment outcomes. Far less attention has been paid to our “second genome”, the microbiome—comprising the trillions of microbes that thrive in and on the human body.

Honors and Awards April 11, 2017

Gone Girl

Shruti Naik, PhD, Damon Runyon Fellow, Rockefeller University

I was recently asked by Lorraine Egan to serve on a panel for women in STEM at her daughter’s school. The girls’ enthusiasm and curiosity for science was unmistakable. “How do you design an experiment?”, “What do you like about research?”, “How do you identify mentors?”. Their ardent inquiries were nothing but reassuring. I thought, “If these girls represent the future, then the future of women in science is secure!” Enjoying this blissful moment I walked back to my research institute and was promptly jolted back to reality.

Honors and Awards April 7, 2017

Risky Cuts to the NIH Budget

Supporters of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation have been steadfast in their support of our work to identify and enable new generations of the most promising young scientists across the nation so that cancer research will continue to have an influx of brilliant and creative researchers with fresh ideas who are capable of making the next breakthrough against this devastating disease.

This pipeline of new talent is increasingly at risk, all the more so given the new administration’s proposal to cut the National Institutes of Health's budget for next year by 20 percent, and more recently by suggesting an immediate $1.2 billion cut.

Honors and Awards March 29, 2017

ACC: The Value of Mentorship and Collaboration

By Michael W. Drazer, MD, Damon Runyon Physician-Scientist at The University of Chicago

Physician-scientists are uniquely positioned to identify the next generation of scientific breakthroughs and then efficiently translate these discoveries into clinically effective, life-changing therapies for people with cancer. This unique set of opportunities, however, is accompanied by a distinct set of obstacles that confront early career physician-scientists in the scientific and clinical realms. These challenges include financial debt from years of professional training, a lack of protected time for the development of scientifically sound, ambitious research programs, low salaries during years of extended training, and an increasingly unstable and unpredictable funding environment for biomedical research at the national level.

Honors and Awards March 21, 2017

Future of Cancer Challenge

By Yi Yin, PhD, Damon Runyon Fellow, University of Washington

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation recently asked some of our current award recipients how cancer will be prevented, diagnosed, and/or treated differently in the future. What can a future cancer patient, say 10-20 years from now, expect to experience? Their responses were fascinating, and over the next few months we will share their visions for the future on this blog.

I think cancer will be prevented, diagnosed and/or treated very differently within the next 10-20 years.

Honors and Awards March 2, 2017

The Future of Cancer Challenge

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation recently asked some of our current award recipients how cancer will be prevented, diagnosed, and/or treated differently in the future. What can a future cancer patient, say 10-20 years from now, expect to experience? Their responses were fascinating, and over the next few months we will share their visions for the future on this blog.

By Amanda Balboni, PhD, Damon Runyon Sohn Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

In the next 10-20 years, I anticipate that tumor genetic testing will become standard practice as sequencing technology becomes faster and more cost effective. This will revolutionize the way cancer is treated clinically and make personalized cancer medicine a reality.

Damon Runyon News