A new metastatic melanoma study suggests that a combination of two immunotherapies may be better than one: One treatment uses a patient’s own T cells modified in the lab to more powerfully recognize and attack tumors; The other treatment, a “checkpoint inhibitor,” releases the brakes on the body’s natural immune system.
If you’re seeking an expert to discuss a new study (in Nature) about the future of personalized breast cancer treatment, Dr. Amanda (Mandy) Paulovich, Oncologist and Geneticist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and one of the study’s authors, is available.
Chatting on the phone with a “sleep coach” and keeping a nightly sleep diary significantly improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia in women through all stages of menopause, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study also found that such phone-based cognitive behavioral therapy significantly reduced the degree to which hot flashes interfered with daily functioning.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center today announced the hiring of Steve Stadum as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Stadum, currently the COO of Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute, in July will join Fred Hutch as a key member of President and Director Dr. Gary Gilliland’s staff.
Twenty-seven of 29 patients with an advanced type of leukemia that had proved resistant to multiple other forms of therapy went into remission after their T cells (disease-fighting immune cells) were genetically engineered to fight their cancers. This study is the first CAR T-cell trial to infuse patients with an even mixture of two types of T cells (helper and killer cells, which work together to kill cancer). With the assurance that each patient gets the same mixture of cells, the researchers were able to come to conclusions about the effects of administering different doses of cells.
Dr. Philip Greenberg, head of immunology and a member of the Clinical Research Division at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a leader in cancer immunology, will describe how he and colleagues are genetically engineering T cells to seek out cancer cells, penetrate their defenses and kill them. In a presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 in New Orleans, he also will provide a preview of next-generation strategies and upcoming clinical trials for a variety of cancers.
Dr. Gary Gilliland, president and director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy-research centers.
In a phase 2 clinical trial of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab as a first-line systemic therapy for advanced Merkel cell carcinoma, or MCC – a rare, aggressive type of skin cancer – the clinical response rate was similar to that typically seen with standard chemotherapy, but the duration of the response appeared to be markedly longer. There are currently no therapies that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this cancer. This study will be presented on April 19 at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Precision medicine’s public face is that of disease — and better treatments for that disease through targeted therapies. But precision medicine has an unsung partner that could affect the lives of many more people: Precision prevention — a reflection of the growing realization that preventing cancer and other diseases may not be one-size-fits-all.
The Women’s Health Initiative, a nationwide, federally funded research program coordinated by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, has received the 10th annual Team Science Award from the American Association for Cancer Research. Fred Hutch biostatisticians Drs. Ross Prentice and Garnet Anderson, leaders of the WHI Clinical Coordinating Center, were on hand to accept the award April 17 during the American Association for Cancer Research 2016 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, on behalf of the WHI program.
Dr. Sunil Hingorani, a member of the Clinical Research and Public Health Sciences divisions at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will present recent groundbreaking developments in treating pancreas cancer with engineered T-cells at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 in New Orleans on April 16.
Below are brief summaries highlighting several presentations by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2016 in New Orleans from April 16-20. Each contains a link to the related embargoed Fred Hutch news release. For researcher bios, photos and more, please visit www.fredhutch.org/media.
Using PET imaging to guide chemotherapy treatment significantly increases the number of people who go into remission and also decreases toxic side effects for people with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma, according to research led by Dr. Oliver Press, a SWOG member at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and two other National Cancer Institute research groups.
A new study examines fertility issues in male and female childhood cancer survivors who had received chemotherapy. The study found that while most female survivors still have a good chance of conceiving, male survivors are significantly less likely to father children.
A study has identified nerve cells and a region of the brain behind this innate fear response. With a new technique that uses specially-engineered viruses to uncover the nerve pathway involved, a research team led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center biologist and Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Linda Buck has pinpointed a tiny area of the mouse brain responsible for this scent-induced reaction.
Dr. William Grady, a clinical researcher and cancer geneticist at Fred Hutch, has been awarded a $180,000 grant from the DeGregorio Family Foundation for Gastric and Esophageal Cancer Research and the Price Family Foundation for a two-year project to develop a better way to identify people at highest risk for esophageal adenocarcinoma, the most common cancer of the esophagus.
Cancer clinical trials with negative results don’t make an immediate splash in the scientific literature, but they do have a long-term impact on cancer research, according to a new study by SWOG, the federally funded international clinical trials network.
Fred Hutch’s Dr. Gary Lyman helped draft new report, issued today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, to examine regulatory, reimbursement, and clinical practice policy issues that currently influence the adoption of biomarker tests for molecularly targeted therapies into routine clinical practice.
Established in 2000, the award honors the late Harold M. Weintraub, Ph.D., a founding member of the Hutch’s Basic Sciences Division who in 1995 died from brain cancer at age 49.
Metastatic prostate cancer, where better therapeutic strategies are desperately needed, appears to be tailor-made for precision oncology, according to a new study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. They found that a single metastasis within an individual patient can provide consistent molecular information to help guide therapy in metastatic prostate cancer.
Dr. Stanley Riddell, an immunotherapy researcher and oncologist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, presented on Feb. 14 an update on new adoptive T-cell strategies for cancer at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
Is it possible to create public policy that will rein in the skyrocketing costs of cancer-fighting drugs? Dr. Scott Ramsey, a Fred Hutch physician, cancer researcher and health economist addresses that question in a JAMA Oncology editorial. His short answer: Not without significant tradeoffs that could reduce patients’ access to some cancer medications.
It has long been thought that cancer metastasizes, or spreads, when a single cancer cell escapes from the original tumor, travels through the bloodstream and sets up shop in distant organs. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that these bad actors don’t travel alone; instead they migrate through the body in cellular clusters, like gangs.
In a 14-year study involving more than 2,000 teen smokers in 50 Washington state high schools, a team of cancer prevention researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that one year of telephone counseling using motivational interviewing and skills training delivered during the senior year of high school is insufficient to help the smokers quit and stay quit up to six years into young adulthood.
In response to low national vaccination rates for the human papillomavirus, or HPV, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has joined with 67 other top U.S. cancer centers in issuing a statement urging for increased vaccination in adolescent girls and boys for the prevention of many types of HPV-related cancers in adulthood.
Evolutionary biologists at Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, University of Washington and the University of Utah may have solved a century-old evolutionary riddle: How did two related fruit fly species arise from one?
Advanced prostate cancer is a disease notoriously resistant to treatment. New research by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of California, San Francisco sheds light on a new mode of drug resistance to emerging therapies in metastatic prostate cancer. This discovery ultimately may help predict which patients may benefit most from treatment.
Dr. Katherine A. Guthrie, a biostatistician at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is co-leading a $7 million grant for a multicenter clinical trial that will compare popular treatments for menopause-related vaginal symptoms ranging from dryness and atrophy (thinning and shrinking of the tissues) to itching, irritation and painful intercourse.
A new study in mice by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that a specialized type of immunotherapy — even when used without chemotherapy or radiation — can boost survival from pancreatic cancer, a nearly almost-lethal disease, by more than 75 percent. The findings are so promising, human clinical trials are planned within the next year.
Analyses of landmark RV144 HIV vaccine study volunteers revealed that those who developed a unique set of vaccine-induced antibodies in combination with a high level of CD4 T-cell responses to the outer portion of the HIV virus, called its envelope gene, correlated with reduced HIV infection.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center President and Director Gary Gilliland, M.D., Ph.D., has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine). Election to NAM is considered to be one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine, and it recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
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