News

New Discoveries March 5, 2018

New understanding of breast cancer metastasis

The most deadly process in cancer is metastasis, when tumor cells spread to distant organs. Key to preventing metastasis is understanding how these cells are able to move through the body. Carey K. Anders, MD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator ’12-’15) of the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, is shedding light on this process using genetic “snapshots” of both the primary tumor and the tumor after it has spread.

New Discoveries March 1, 2018

Childhood and adult cancers are not equal

Two new studies confirm that pediatric and adult cancers have different mechanisms driving the disease. These are the first large-scale genomic comparisons, combing through the genomes of more than 1,700 tumors, from over 20 different kinds of childhood cancers. Daniela S. Gerhard, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’83-’85) of NCI, Bethesda, and Angela J. Waanders, MD, MPH (Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist ’15-’17, Damon Runyon-Sohn Pediatric Cancer Fellow ‘12-‘15) of Chilidren’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, contributed to these studies.

New Discoveries February 19, 2018

Damon Runyon Scientists Featured in The New York Times

The big story in cancer research is the recent success of immunotherapy, which involves training and reengineering the immune system to kill cancers. The New York Times featured four women whose rare, aggressive ovarian cancers were unexpectedly cured with immunotherapy. This story resulted from research by Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '13-'16) of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, who studied these patients to understand why they responded to this treatment (nivolumab/Opdivo). In addition, two other Damon Runyon alumni were featured.

New Discoveries February 1, 2018

2018 Laura Ziskin Prize in Translational Research

Helen M. Piwnica-Worms, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’84-’85, Former Fellowship Award Committee Member) of MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, received the 2018 Laura Ziskin Prize in Translational Research from Stand Up to Cancer. She and her collaborator will apply their expertise in DNA damage repair mechanisms and imaging mass cytometry to investigate how the immune system recognizes breast cancer and devise new treatment combinations for more effective treatments.

New Discoveries January 31, 2018

2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Feng Zhang, PhD (Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator ‘12-‘14) of the Broad Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, was named one of three recipients of the 2018 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. The awards from the Vilcek Foundation recognize young foreign-born biomedical scientists, 38 years old or younger, who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. He is recognized for his groundbreaking work in the field of CRISPR genome editing.

New Discoveries January 31, 2018

Cancer ‘vaccine’ eliminates tumors in mice

Ron Levy, MD (Emeritus Board Member), and colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, reported the success of an injectable "vaccine" delivered directly to tumors. The vaccine combines two key agents, a short piece of DNA called CpG oligonucleotide with an antibody that binds to OX40, thus activating immune T cells to fight cancer cells. In mice, they found that it could eliminate all traces of the injected tumors, including untreated metastases in the same animal. A human clinical trial in low-grade lymphoma patients is currently underway.

New Discoveries January 29, 2018

Potential new combination treatment for Ewing sarcoma

Amanda Balboni Iniguez, PhD (Damon Runyon-Sohn Fellow ’15-’19) and colleagues at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, reported that a class of cancer drugs called CDK inhibitors may be able to disarm a gene that causes Ewing sarcoma, the second most common form of bone tumor in young people. They showed in mouse models of Ewing sarcoma that CDK12 inhibitors could slow down tumor growth and extend life.

New Discoveries January 23, 2018

New drug target for neuroblastoma

Mark W. Zimmerman, PhD (Damon Runyon-Sohn Fellow ’14-’18) and colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, have identified mechanisms that drive about 10 percent of high-risk neuroblastoma cases. Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor affecting infants and young children with few effective treatment options. The researchers found that a protein called c-MYC could cause neuroblastoma, when it is produced at abnormally high levels in tumor cells in a zebrafish model. They also found that chromosomes had breaks and rearrangements near the gene producing c-MYC.

New Discoveries January 17, 2018

2018 National Academy of Sciences Award

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 19 individuals with awards in recognition of their extraordinary scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological, and medical sciences. Congratulations to Damon Runyon alumnus and mentor Howard Y. Chang, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Scholar ‘06-‘08), of Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, who will receive the 2018 NAS Award in Molecular Biology for the discovery of long noncoding RNAs and the invention of genomic technologies.

New Discoveries December 4, 2017

Gene associated with metastatic melanoma identified

Craig J. Ceol, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow '05-'07) of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, and colleagues, have identified a new protein that is involved in metastatic melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. The protein, GDF6, is part of a class of proteins called “growth differentiation factors” that helps cells divide and differentiate into specific cell types. Looking at human melanoma cells, the researchers found that 80 percent of patient tumors had elevated levels of GDF6 and these higher levels correlated to the aggressiveness of the cancer.

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