Salk Institute and the University of California San Diego have identified a unique sugar called HSAT (antithrombin-binding heparan sulfate) as a potential therapeutic target for slowing tumor progression and metastasis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common pancreatic cancer. They also found that HSAT was detectable in cancer patients’ plasma, suggesting it may be a useful biomarker to help catch and track pancreatic cancer.

Findings from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital reveal new levels of complexity in neuroblastoma cell identity and present a new approach to treatment.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the primary cause of virus-associated cancers, especially cervical and head and neck cancers. A key mechanism involves the integration of HPV DNA into the host genome. To support the WHO's strategy to eliminate cervical cancer, understanding HPV integration is crucial. This summary highlights current insights into the mechanisms of HPV integration, their clinical implications, and emerging therapeutic strategies aimed at enhancing precision oncology for HPV-related cancers.

A project at Lund University in Sweden has trained an AI model to identify breast cancer patients who could be spared from axillary surgery. The model analyses previously unutilised information in mammograms and pinpoints with high accuracy the individual risk of metastasis in the armpit. A newly completed study shows that the model indicates that just over 40 per cent of today’s axillary surgery procedures could be avoided.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex and dynamic ecosystem that plays a pivotal role in cancer progression and therapy resistance. Its heterogeneity and constant remodeling present significant challenges for effective treatment. The emergence of nanomedicine integrates nanotechnology and medicine, aiming to overcome and ameliorate the limitations of conventional therapeutic agents in cancer treatment. Despite the broad biomedical applications of nanomaterials, the clinical translation of nanodrugs remains hindered by the complexity and heterogeneity of the TME as well as challenges related to the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials. This paper published in iMetaMed underscores key challenges and difficulties currently faced by nanomaterials in cancer treatment, including: issues related to nanomaterial biosafety and long-term toxicity assessment; uncertainties in vivo biotransformation and metabolic pathways; therapeutic efficacy variations caused by spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the TME; barriers from laboratory research to clinical translation; and insufficient selectivity in the precise modulation of TME components.

The University of Texas at Arlington has received a $1.84 million federal grant to study how the body’s natural defense system can sometimes go wrong—and how that knowledge could lead to better treatments for disease.

The new paper shows that two protein “transcription factors” called Tcf1 and Lef1 are critical modulators that direct bone marrow stem cells to the T cell path in the thymus - and could have implications in cancer immunotherapy and vaccine developments for years to come.