Two molecules that affected the cell cycle only of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells could be used as a clinical strategy against this pathology. Scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Harvard University have discovered that DEG-35 and DEG-77 arrested the cell cycle and promoted cell differentiation and apoptosis in these cells.

The FDA issued an Oct. 18 reminder to the diagnostics industry that the agency still requires test developers to register with an institutional review board (IRB) for all studies of human subjects. This still pertains to studies that make use of leftover, de-identified specimens in FDA-regulated studies, an alert to industry which suggests that enforcement actions may be in the near offing.

In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas. Involvement of epigenetic factors in cancers, or their targeting, is not new in cancer – as HDAC inhibitors as well as newer drugs such as the EZH2 inhibitor Tazverik (tazemetostat, Epizyme Inc.) demonstrate. But to Richard White and his colleagues, the point of their work is not so much about individual targets.

In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas.

Researchers have identified an evolutionarily conserved metabolic role for tissue-resident macrophages, they reported in the July 2, 2021, issue of Science. In a commentary published alongside the paper, Conan O’Brien and Ana Domingos from the University of Oxford asserted that the work “introduces a new, macrophage-centered paradigm in… energy storage.”

By targeting chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to a senescence marker, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have developed a CAR T cell that had beneficial effects in mouse models of both liver fibrosis and lung cancer.

The three founders of newly launched Volastra Therapeutics Inc. had plenty in common when they decided to create the company. Their offices happened to be a half block apart on 69th Street in midtown Manhattan. Their interests in oncology were similar but each approached the disease from different angles.