Although immunotherapy has emerged as a potent cancer treatment over the last decade, long-lasting results have been largely disappointing. In new research from the University of Toronto, researchers have identified dozens of genes that allow cancer cells to evade detection by the immune cells. The finding paves the way for…

A new study of multiple treatments aimed at preventing mild COVID-19 from advancing to severe illness has begun at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The first study is of LY-CoV555, an investigational antibody developed from the blood sample of a recovered COVID-19 patient. That trial…

Researchers have identified mutations specific to an aggressive type of pancreatic cancer, called adenosquamous cancer of the pancreas, that could be used as targets for new drugs to treat this often fatal disease. As well as finding a number of genetic variants that are also found in other cancers, the…

Greater diversity in the gut microbiomes of patients with kidney cancer is linked to better immunotherapy outcomes according to new research from physicians City of Hope and its research affiliate the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). The findings were reported today in the paper “Stool Microbiome Profiling of Patients with…

Thrive Earlier Detection said today it has raised $257 million in Series B financing toward advancing its CancerSEEK liquid biopsy test CancerSEEK is a a DNA- and protein-based liquid biopsy designed to detect cancer by analyzing eight tumor specific genomic mutations in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and cancer-associated protein biomarkers…

Computation pathology software provider Indica Labs and Octo, an information technology systems provider to the U.S. Federal Government,  announced the launch of the online COVID Digital Pathology Repository (COVID-DPR), a virtual collection of high resolution microscopic COVID-related human tissue images hosted at the National Institutes of Health. The creation of…

European research shows that men with heart failure have higher levels of a protein called angiotensin converting enzyme 2 than women, which could increase their risk for coronavirus infection. Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a common target for cardiovascular disease therapies, as it plays a role in regulation of…

Memory—a key feature of the adaptive immune system—is evident in the innate immune system, too. But it has been unclear whether memory in the innate immune system is specific to previously encountered antigens. Now it appears that antigen-specific memory is in fact an attribute of the innate immune system’s monocytes…

A study using a single mutation-based screening blood test for multiple cancer types found it could detect asymptomatic cancers in women. In the Detecting cancers Earlier Through Elective mutation-based blood Collection and Testing (DETECT-A) study, 10,000 women ages 65 to 75 with no prior cancer history were evaluated using CancerSEEK,…

Researchers believe a combination of health factors and type II diabetes puts some patients at a higher risk than others for suffering more severe effects of COVID-19. A new study from the National Institute of Health (NIH) may explain why certain populations in the US are more prone to develop…

Thyroid dysfunction following cancer treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors is more common than previously thought, according to research accepted for presentation at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting (which was cancelled), and soon to be published in a special supplemental section of the Journal of the Endocrine Society. Cancer immunotherapy, particularly treatment…

For patients admitted to the hospital and confirmed to have the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the key risk factors for death are: Advanced age Signs of sepsis Blood clotting issues These risk factors come from a new retrospective study that evaluated data records for 191 patients—137 survivors and 54 non-survivors.…

A new study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) adds more weight to previous findings implicating variants of the gene ARMC5 in the increased risk of hypertension in blacks. Researchers identified 17 variants in the gene that were associated with high blood pressure in individuals of…

Identifying novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets is critical to combating a complex, heterogeneous disease such as cancer. Now, investigators at Johns Hopkins have just identified a protein involved in cell proliferation and the development of new blood vessels that could serve as a marker for the early detection of colorectal…

Scientists have discovered a link between certain changes in the genome of a tumor and increased chances of death across multiple types of cancer. Their study (“Tumor copy number alteration burden is a pan-cancer prognostic factor associated with recurrence and death”), published in eLife, suggests the percentage of a tumor's genome with copy number…