Fighting cancer can seem like a deadly game of chance. While some patients may respond well to certain treatments, others might not be as fortunate. Doctors and scientists have long struggled to explain why. Now, in new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Shelley Berger, PhD, the Daniel S. Och University Professor and Director of Penn’s Epigentics Institute, and Katherine Alexander, PhD, currently an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have found a possible source of this variability in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC)—the most common kidney cancer diagnosed in adults. The findings of their study were published today in Nature Cell Biology.

Researchers from the lab of Prof. Sarah-Maria Fendt (VIB-KU Leuven) and colleagues have uncovered that the availability of the amino acid aspartate is one reason why the lung is a frequent organ of metastasis. Their work appears in Nature and improves our understanding of cancer biology while providing the foundation for new therapeutic interventions in metastatic diseases.

A new study conducted at the Scojen Institute for Synthetic Biology at Reichman University’s Dina Recanati School of Medicine announces the launch of the ChiTaRS 8.0 database, the world’s largest collection of chimeric genes (gene fusions) found in humans with cancer and other chronic diseases. The project, led by Dr. Dr. Milana Frenkel-Morgenstern, head of the Genomics and Computational Biology Lab, together with doctoral students Dylan D'Souza and Olwumi Giwa of the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University, marks a significant step in advancing the understanding of chimeric genes and supporting scientists and clinicians in their pursuit to develop more effective and personalized cancer treatments.