EurekAlert! Cancer Research

News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 31-Jul-2025 05:11 ET (31-Jul-2025 09:11 GMT/UTC)

30-Jul-2025

Cracking the code for organ-specific drug delivery

University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new UNLV study by a team of chemical biologists, published in Advanced Materials, details a way to selectively route mRNA to the pancreas by using the body’s own endogenous pathways – systems responsible for moving materials through the body.

Journal: Advanced Materials

30-Jul-2025

CPADS: a web tool for comprehensive pancancer analysis of drug sensitivity

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Drug sensitivity analysis is crucial for precision cancer therapy. We developed CPADS, a web tool integrating transcriptomic data from 29,000+ samples (44 cancers, 288 drugs, 9,000+ gene perturbations). It enables differential expression, pathway, drug, and gene perturbation analyses with interactive visualization. CPADS aids researchers in exploring drug resistance mechanisms at gene/pathway levels. Access: https://smuonco.shinyapps.io/CPADS/ or https://robinl-lab.com/CPADS.

Journal: Briefings in Bioinformatics
Funder: Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China, GuangDong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, Medical Science and Technology Project of Sichuan Provincial Health Commission

30-Jul-2025

THER: integrative web tool for tumor hypoxia exploration and research

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

We developed THER, a web tool integrating 63 hypoxia-related tumor transcriptomic datasets, enabling differential expression, expression profiling, correlation, enrichment, and drug sensitivity analyses. It helps identify valuable biomarkers, further reveal the molecular mechanisms of tumor hypoxia, and identify effective drugs, thus providing a scientific basis for tumor diagnosis and treatment. Experimental verification showed hypoxia reduces tumor cell sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs. Accessible at https://smuonco.shinyapps.io/THER/.

Journal: Cell Proliferation

30-Jul-2025

CAR-T cell therapy linked to increased risk of secondary primary malignancies globally

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a ground-breaking analysis, researchers have examined global safety databases to reveal increased risks of secondary primary malignancies following CAR-T cell therapy. These findings not only support recent FDA warnings but identify age-specific patterns showing younger patients face earlier onset of secondary cancers.

Journal: EClinicalMedicine
Funder: Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou

30-Jul-2025

Beta-HPV can directly cause skin cancer in immunocompromised people

NIH/Office of the Director
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have shown for the first time that a type of human papillomavirus (HPV) commonly found on the skin can directly cause a form of skin cancer called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) when certain immune cells malfunction. cSCC is one of the most common cancers in the United States and worldwide. Previously, scientists believed HPV merely facilitated the accumulation of DNA mutations caused by ultraviolet (UV) radiation, usually the primary driver of cSCC. The findings were published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Journal: New England Journal of Medicine
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

30-Jul-2025

T cell senescence in the tumor microenvironment

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

This review synthesizes current knowledge on the triggers and characteristics of T cell senescence in the tumor microenvironment (TME), elucidates how senescent T cells interact with other immune cells, and assesses the impact of these cells on tumor prognosis. In addition, this review systematically examines targeted therapeutic strategies aimed at mitigating the detrimental effects of T cell senescence on cancer treatment.

Journal: Cancer Immunology Research
Funder: Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, Hunan Youth Science and Technology Talent Project

30-Jul-2025

AI can fake peer reviews and escape detection, study finds

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers tested a large language model (LLM) on peer review tasks for cancer research papers. They found the AI could be abused to generate highly persuasive rejection letters and other fraudulent reviews, such as requests to cite unrelated papers. Crucially, current AI detection tools were largely unable to identify the AI-generated text, posing a significant, hidden threat to academic integrity.

Journal: Clinical and Translational Discovery

30-Jul-2025

Unveiling large multimodal models in pulmonary CT: A comparative assessment of generative AI performance in lung cancer diagnostics

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The objective of this study is to assess the diagnostic performance of image analysis-capable generative AI (Gen-AI) (GPT-4-turbo, Google DeepMind's Gemini-pro-vision, and Anthropic’s Claude-3-opus) in interpreting CT images of lung cancer. This is the first study to integrate the diagnostic capabilities of these three models across distinct imaging settings. Additionally, a Likert scale is used to evaluate each model's internal tendencies. By examining the potential and limitations of multimodal large language models (MM-LLMs) for lung cancer diagnosis, this research aims to provide an evidence-based foundation for the future clinical applications of Gen-AI.

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangdong Yiyang Healthcare Charity Foundation

30-Jul-2025

Cancer's double agents: Fibroblasts both help and hinder immunotherapy

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) create immune-dampening environments that help tumors grow, yet paradoxically, specific CAF subtypes can boost anti-tumor immunity. This review reveals how CAF heterogeneity explains conflicting immunotherapy outcomes and proposes precision strategies to target "bad" CAFs while preserving beneficial ones.

Journal: Clinical and Translational Discovery

30-Jul-2025

Liver fibrosis to cancer: scientists map path to block deadly transition

FAR Publishing Limited
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers decode how liver fibrosis progresses to cancer, identifying key cellular drivers and signaling pathways. The review highlights promising biomarkers for early detection and novel therapeutic targets to disrupt this lethal process.

Journal: Hepatology International
Funder: Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, Hunan Youth Science and Technology Talent Project