Glioma, particularly glioblastoma, remains difficult to treat because tumor cells can resist conventional therapies. A review from the Chinese Neurosurgical Journal examines how altered fatty acid metabolism supports tumor growth, stem cell properties, immune suppression, and resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The researchers highlight emerging targets and combination strategies, while emphasizing that most approaches require further validation and must overcome challenges involving normal brain metabolism and drug delivery across the blood–brain barrier. 

 

Children with the most common form of childhood cancer could benefit from more personalised treatment thanks to new research that is changing how doctors assess the risk of the disease returning.

Insilico Medicine will present first-in-human Phase 1 data on ISM6331, an investigational oral pan-TEAD inhibitor designed using its generative AI platform, Chemistry42, at the ESMO Congress 2026 in Madrid. The ongoing multicenter study evaluates safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary antitumor activity in patients with mesothelioma or other advanced solid tumors. Melina E. Marmarelis, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, will present updated findings on October 25.

Hepatocellular carcinoma immunotherapy faces a major clinical challenge: why do some patients develop rapid resistance? A new comprehensive review argues that the gut microbiome and its metabolites, acting through the gut–liver axis, critically shape the hepatic immune microenvironment and influence checkpoint inhibitor efficacy. The authors also discuss fecal microbiota transplantation, probiotics, engineered bacteria, and metabolite interventions as emerging strategies to reverse resistance and improve outcomes for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

The ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group announced today that it will open a randomized, registration-enabling phase 2/3 clinical trial to evaluate ivonescimab combined with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer. The new study, EA2251, will test whether ivonescimab, an investigational bispecific antibody that targets PD-1 and VEGF, can improve survival beyond standard chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Clinical trial sites can expect to activate the study in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Researchers at Uppsala University have adapted Cell Painting, a widely used imaging method in drug discovery, to look at individual cells inside small 3D clusters of cancer cells. Two drugs that looked almost identical in ordinary flat cell cultures behaved differently in 3D, and the team linked the difference to how each drug switches on the cell’s p53 stress response.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI) at Kanazawa University have discovered that tiny structural defects can trigger the breakdown of microtubules, the microscopic structures that help cells maintain their shape, transport materials and divide. Using high-speed atomic force microscopy, the team observed how these defects develop and sometimes cause microtubules to collapse, even in the presence of paclitaxel, a widely used cancer drug that stabilizes them. The findings, published in ACS Nano, challenge the conventional view that microtubule breakdown begins primarily at their ends and offer new insights into the structural processes that may influence responses to cancer treatment.

Results of a national clinical trial led by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology in conjunction with NRG Oncology and the Canadian Cancer Trials Group show that a shorter, three-week radiation schedule following a mastectomy is as safe and effective as the standard five-week treatment for women undergoing breast reconstruction. The results of the RT CHARM trial (Alliance A221505) are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.