Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation

Congratulations to the newest Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators! The six recipients of this prestigious award are outstanding, early-career physician-scientists conducting patient-oriented cancer research. We can’t wait to see what breakthroughs will emerge from their work! Learn more about these projects and our new Awardees: https://lnkd.in/e6idP-i6

Congratulations to SCI member Steven Corsello, MD, for being named a 2024 Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Clinical Investigator! He is investigating how to simultaneously activate inflammatory signaling and cell death pathways to develop less toxic therapies for pancreatic cancer. https://bit.ly/3yGhhIT #PancreaticCancer #CancerResearch

Congratulations to the newest Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators! The six recipients of this prestigious award are outstanding, early-career physician-scientists conducting patient-oriented cancer research. We can’t wait to see what breakthroughs will emerge from their work! Learn more about these projects and our new Awardees: https://lnkd.in/e6idP-i6

A recent study by former Damon Runyon Fellow Eric E. Gardner, PharmD, PhD, and colleagues reveals how some lung cancer cells resist targeted therapy, implicating other oncogenes besides the original target. Read more: https://bit.ly/4djL9cG

The FDA has approved a groundbreaking new tool developed by former Damon Runyon Innovator David G. Kirsch, MD, PhD, that enables surgeons to scan the breast cavity during surgery to detect residual cancer that may have otherwise been missed. Read more: bit.ly/3zwqDHs

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named the first cohort of the Damon Runyon Scholars Program for Advancing Research and Knowledge (SPARK), a one-year intensive cancer research internship program for students from varied backgrounds. 🎇 Among this year's SPARK awardees is Carli Newman from the Seattle Children's Research Institute and Fred Hutch: https://bit.ly/46a703T

Prostate cancer is a disease with many subtypes, some of which are more difficult to treat than others. While most prostate cancer cells rely on androgen hormones to grow—allowing androgen blockers to emerge as an effective therapy—15 to 20 percent of prostate cancers evolve to be “androgen-independent.” Diagnosing these more aggressive forms of the cancer can be challenging - until now. A new blood test developed by former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Himisha Beltran, MD, and colleagues uses free-floating tumor DNA to detect an aggressive form of prostate cancer less invasively and with more accuracy. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4bNJs66

🫁 Excited to see this work from my time at Boston Children's Hospital Stem Cell Program now published in EMBO J! Our research utilized 3D lung organoid models, human data, and in vivo studies to uncover that lung alveolar type 2 progenitors (AT2 cells) enter a transient injury/plastic state before undergoing self-renewal or differentiation into AT1 cells. This state plays a crucial role in lung regeneration and repair. Furthermore, our findings revealed that mutant KRAS can hijack this AT2 injury/plastic state, leading to the development of lung adenocarcinoma and highlighting how oncogenic mutations and injury/inflammation can interact with terrible consequences. These discoveries have significant implications for understanding the regulation of lung progenitor fate and hold promising applications for regenerative medicine and cell therapy development. Additionally, our research sheds light on a vulnerability that could be targeted for the treatment of early-stage lung adenocarcinoma. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Carla Kim, Boston Children's Hospital Stem Cell Program, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and all the authors for their invaluable support and hard work. Your contributions have been instrumental in the success of this research. I am also extremely honored that our article was selected for the cover of the journal! Link to article here: https://lnkd.in/ebaTwMb2

At Stanford University, Damon Runyon scientists Kavita Y. Sarin, MD, PhD, and Adam de la Zerda, PhD, and colleagues have developed a noninvasive imaging tool, termed a “virtual biopsy,” to analyze potentially cancerous tissue. The tool could not only avoid the invasive and time-consuming aspects of regular tissue biopsies, but also allow clinicians to pick up on information that is extremely difficult to see otherwise. Read more: https://bit.ly/45UmAAJ

Congratulations to the inaugural class of the Damon Runyon-Scholars Program for Advancing Research and Knowledge (SPARK)! These outstanding college graduates will spend a year conducting research in the lab of a current or former Damon Runyon scientist, gaining the skills, experience, and mentorship needed to pursue a career in cancer research. Read more about the new SPARK Scholars here: https://bit.ly/45BSfGQ