A new era in cancer research and treatment is dawning. Decades of hard work, scientific investment and diligent commitment led to the development of the first targeted therapies and immunotherapies 20 years ago, but only a few of these therapies had become widely available—until recently. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved several immunotherapies in […]
This year, more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed, and cancer will kill an estimated 600,000 Americans. Cancer research has reached an inflection point—a juncture where medical scientists are at the cusp of breakthroughs that could dramatically change those numbers. The National Cancer Moonshot initiative is being launched with $1 billion […]
The collaborative culture among scientists and clinicians at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center proved to be a perfect fit for the Edward P. Evans Foundation, a major funder of research on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Through investments totaling nearly $3 million, the foundation has supported VICC faculty members’ contributions to research on the mechanistic underpinnings of the disease, […]
Checkpoint Inhibitors remove negative regulators (“brakes”) on T cells, allowing T cells to attack the tumor. Tumor vaccines expose the immune system to cancer antigens to produce an immune response. T cell therapies entail removing T cells from the body then engineering them to recognize cancer cells. – Source Douglas B. Johnson, M.D.
My husband looked at me and said, “I need you to teach me how to fix her hair.” It was December of 2010, and we were sitting in an oncology office after hearing the news that I had stage IV melanoma. Cancer. Not just a little bit of cancer, but a lot. No one had […]
A possible targeted therapy emerges for triple-negative breast cancer A targeted therapy for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive form of breast cancer, has shown potential promise in a recently published study. TNBC is the only type of breast cancer for which there are no currently approved targeted therapies. The new study led by […]
Study identifies new culprit in lung cancer development A microRNA—a small piece of RNA involved in regulating gene expression—functions as an oncogene to drive the development of lung cancer, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators have discovered. The microRNA, known as miR-31, is expressed at high levels in human lung adenocarcinoma, and its expression correlates with reduced […]
Moments after becoming the first patient in Tennessee to undergo the most recent FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Dan Einstein, an admitted planner, knew he was in uncharted territory. But he was at peace. “There is no script,” he said. “We are sort of writing this as we go, and in […]
When a pesky weed pops up in the midst of your lush lawn, what do you do? You probably don’t douse the yard with an herbicide that kills every green growing thing. But that sort of indiscriminate damage is what cytotoxic chemotherapies do as they flow through the body. They kill dividing cells—both tumor cells […]
For patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), the only chance for a cure is stem cell transplantation: a massive dose of chemotherapy to kill their diseased bone marrow, followed by an infusion of stem cells from a healthy donor to replace it. With a success rate of 40 percent, it’s far from a sure thing. Tommy […]
