Adaptimmune’s pivotal SPEARHEAD-1 trial has shown that the T cell receptor therapy afami-cel effectively targets metastatic synovial sarcoma and myxoid round cell liposarcoma, potentially opening the door for other solid tumors to be treated with T cell therapies. “Synovial sarcoma is a rare cancer with historically limited treatment options and…

Research led by the University of Texas at El Paso and Bodoland University in India shows a special type of quantum dot made from caffeic acid, which can be extracted from coffee grounds, could be very effective at preventing the onset of neurodegeneration. The research is still at an early…

New research shows Tau is a possible cause of long COVID “brain fog.” Another study suggests specific genes passed on from Neanderthals confer extra risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms. Studies have shown that contracting COVID-19 can worsen Alzheimer’s disease in patients. The infection may also make people more prone to…

A team of Austrian researchers using single-cell sequencing has uncovered how cancer cells prevent cells in their environment from fighting the tumor. The research, published in Nature Communications and led by Sabine Taschner-Mandl, PhD, head of the Tumor Biology Group at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI),…

The p53 gene is perhaps the most-studied, master tumor suppressor gene in cancer biology. When it works well, it’s difficult for tumors to develop. But in half of all tumors, mutated p53 has been shut down by repressors. Despite decades of research into restoring normal therapeutically-capable p53 activity, reliable strategies…

A new real-time imaging technique that illuminates tumor cells to differentiate them from surrounding healthy cells has the potential to improve cancer treatment by allowing doctors to see, during surgery, if they have removed all the cancer cells present in the patient. Developed at the Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Interventional and…

A team of researchers led by David Liu, professor at Harvard University and the Broad Institute, have engineered DNA-free virus-like particles (eVLPs) that can efficiently deliver base editors, or Cas9 ribonucleoproteins, to multiple organs with minimal off-target effects. While base editing provides a powerful protocol for treating currently untreatable genetic…

Researchers have described mechanisms involved in focal amplification (FA) of BRAF and other genes in the MAPK signaling pathway, which is a driver of many cancer types.  These findings could help further understanding of drug resistance to particular drugs for cancers, including melanoma. “This study was designed to provide details…

A multi-institutional research team led by Salk scientists has defined how antibodies recognize phosphohistidine—a highly unstable molecule that may to play a central role in some forms of cancer, such as liver and breast cancer and neuroblastoma. These insights can fuel further studies of phosphohistidine’s potential role in cancer. They…

Each year, about 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer. To learn more about , underlying genetic risks for cancer in children, researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering’s pediatric program tested 751 pediatric patients treated for solid tumors for inherited cancer-associated mutations, or germline mutations. In a paper published in Nature Cancer,…

A team of investigators at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has released new data describing an enhanced treatment that leads to long-term remissions in 80–100% of mice with drug-resistant or high-risk solid tumors. Findings from the new study were published recently in Cancer Research through an article titled, “Structural Optimization…

Gene coding regions constitute 2% of the human genome. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed a computational tool to identify alterations that drive tumor formation in the remaining 98% of the genome. The method will aid discovery of oncogenes and advances in precision medicine for children and adults…

New research published in The Cell from researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine shows non-coding DNA—often referred to as ‘junk’ DNA because it does not encode for any known function—can contribute to cancer development. The mechanism identified suggests that when an…