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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues from 11 other institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom have used two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) – one from the U.S. and one from the U.K. – to detect a novel set of genes found to be associated with epithelial ovarian cancer patient survival. The discovery could open the door to new therapies for treating epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), the most lethal kind of gynecologic malignancy.

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A team of 18 researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have found that treating high-risk, soft tissue sarcoma patients with a combination of implanted dendritic cells (immune system cells) and fractionated external beam radiation (EBRT) provided more than 50 percent of their trial patients with tumor-specific immune responses lasting from 11 to 42 weeks.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues in California have found that the XL888 inhibitor can prevent resistance to the chemotherapy drug vemurafenib, commonly used for treating patients with melanoma.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and the University of South Florida College of Medicine evaluated the experience of medical students who participated in videotaped sessions where they practiced conveying difficult news to “standardized patients” (SPs). The SPs role-played patients with a variety of cancers and who were receiving bad medical news.

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A recent study conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and the Mayo Clinic has found that female cancer survivors receiving screening mammography have “worse health behaviors” than women receiving mammography screening and who had never had cancer.

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A new patent has been issued to Moffitt Cancer Center for a computerized system that efficiently selects the right patient for the right clinical trial. The newly patented system matches the registered patient’s own molecular profile – warehoused in a database of thousands of patient-donated biological tissue or tumor samples – to the molecular design of the drug aimed at targeting their disease at the molecular level, and does it quickly.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have discovered that the immune response regulator IKBKE (serine/threonine kinase) plays two roles in tobacco-related non-small cell lung cancers. Tobacco carcinogens induce IKBKE and, in turn, IKBKE induces chemotherapy resistance.

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A description of the projects and studies resulting from a research partnership initiated in 2005 between Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida and the Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico, has been published in a recent issue of Health Promotion Practice. The partnership included three outreach cancer education projects and two pilot research studies aimed at reducing cancer health disparities in Hispanic populations in both Tampa and Ponce.

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In a study conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues from 11 other institutions in the Unites States and the United Kingdom, genes that are known to be involved in inflammation were found to be related to risk of ovarian cancer.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, who teamed with colleagues at five universities around the United States, analyzed past studies of cancer-related pain reduction and found that psychosocial interventions can have a beneficial effect on cancer patients’ pain severity.

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In a study investigating immune response in cancer, Moffitt Cancer Center and University of South Florida researchers have found that interaction between the immune system’s antigen-specific CD4 T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) – cells that play a major role in cancer-related immune suppression – dramatically change the nature of MDSC-mediated suppression. By contrast, the same effect was not observed when MDSCs interacted with the immune system’s CD8 T cells.

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Using two cell surface markers found to be highly expressed in breast cancer lymph node metastases, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, working with colleagues at other institutions, have developed targeted, fluorescent molecular imaging probes that can non-invasively detect breast cancer lymph node metastases. The new procedure could spare breast cancer patients invasive and unreliable sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsies and surgery-associated negative side effects.

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A malignancy-risk gene signature developed for breast cancer has been found to have predictive and prognostic value for patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer. The advancement was made by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, who published their study results in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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Fibroblasts, cells that play a role in the structural framework of tissues, play an apparent role in melanoma tumor growth. Fibroblasts also contribute to melanoma drug resistance and may also facilitate the “flare” response when a tumor’s metabolism is enhanced following a patient being removed from a targeted therapy, said researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center.

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Finding ways to counteract or disrupt the invasive nature of cancer cells, called “metastasis,” has been a long-term goal of cancer researchers. Now, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have identified an interactive pathway that regulates metastases in some cancers that may be vulnerable to chemical targeting in order to prevent cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth.

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Women who have non-melanoma skin cancers are more likely to have smoked cigarettes compared to women without skin cancer, said researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, who published study results in a recent issue of Cancer Causes Control.

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In a follow-up study, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have found that patients who receive chemotherapy for breast cancer might experience prolonged fatigue years after their therapy. The new study, published in the American Cancer Society’s current issue of CANCER, is a follow-up to a study on fatigue and chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer Moffitt researchers published in CANCER in 2007.

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When the American Society of Hematology convenes its 53rd Annual Meeting and Exposition on Dec. 10-13 in San Diego, Calif., researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center will break a new record for Moffitt participants with one plenary presentation, 16 oral presentations and more than 50 poster presentations on new research results in a variety of meeting programs that focus on blood cancer basic science and clinical applications, including bone marrow transplantation and clinical trials results.

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MK 1775, a small, selective inhibitor molecule, has been found to be active against many sarcomas when tested by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center. Their findings, recently appearing in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, published by the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest that a badly needed new agent against sarcomas – especially sarcomas affecting children – may be at hand.

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Although men have higher cancer mortality rates than women, they are less willing to be screened for cancer, according to a study conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues at Sanoa Consulting LLC, Muscle Shoals, Ala., and the New York University College of Dentistry.

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A protein called “fascin” appears to play a critical transformation role in TGF beta mediated tumor metastasis, say researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, who published a study in a recent issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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Because the incidence of malignant melanoma is rising faster than any other cancer in the U.S., researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at Intezyne Technologies, Inc., Western Carolina University and the University of Arizona are working overtime to develop new technologies to aid in both malignant melanoma diagnosis and therapy. A tool of great promise comes from the world of nanomedicine – where tiny drug delivery systems are measured in the billionths of meters and are being designed to deliver targeted therapies.

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Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a serious risk in many kinds of cell transplants, including for stem cell transplants carried out when stem cells are partially depleted of conventional T cells, which play an important role in the immune system. Now, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have tested a process by which T regulatory cells (Tregs) can be “expanded” to help prevent GVHD.

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The National Cancer Institute recently awarded $7.2 million for the competitive renewal of the Southeast Phase 2 Consortium (SEP2C), led by Moffitt Cancer Center’s Daniel Sullivan, M.D., executive vice president and associate center director for Clinical Investigations.

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Assessing the quality of life experienced by cancer survivors is becoming increasingly important, say Moffitt Cancer Center researchers. Such an assessment has a number of important applications when doing research on cancer survivorship, but just how to measure quality of life for cancer survivors is still being developed.

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Publishing in the current issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered additional mechanisms of “Akt” activation and suggest a component of that activation mechanism – inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B kinase subunit epsilon (IKBKE) – could be targeted as a therapeutic intervention for treating cancer.

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Alexander R. A. Anderson, Ph.D., co-director of Integrative Mathematical Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center, and colleagues, Simon Hayward, Ph.D., at Vanderbilt University and Gustavo Ayala, M.D., at Baylor College of Medicine, have received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create new mathematical models to predict prostate cancer aggressiveness.

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According to a researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and her colleagues in the Netherlands, earlier circumcision of males in South Africa may be a positive step in slowing the spread of both HIV and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Their commentary and data were published in a recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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Researchers have found that tumor cell resistance to a specific cancer immunotherapy designed to kill cancer cells can be blamed on a mechanism that involves the production of a free radical peroxynitrite (PNT) that causes resistance to therapeutic cancer-killing cells.

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A new and better understanding of blood vessel growth and vascular development (angiogenesis) in cancer has been made possible by research by a team of scientists from Moffitt Cancer Center, the University of Florida, Harvard University, Yale University and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

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Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have identified a molecular pathway that may play a key role in the evolution of chemotherapy resistance. They are hopeful that the discovery may lead to therapies that are tailored to individual patients with ovarian cancer.

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Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, and colleagues, are pioneering promising research utilizing a monitoring technology that could provide a better understanding of acquired drug resistance and assist in clinical decision-making for developing individualized patient treatments for multiple myeloma.