Damon Runyon News

Immune-based therapies have revolutionized the way cancer patients are treated; however, most patients do not benefit from these current treatments. Dr. Overacre-Delgoffe seeks to understand why certain patients do not respond and, along with others in the field, has found that the bacteria (microbes) that reside within the gut can impact this response across cancer types. Dr.

Dr. Andreeva focuses on structural and mechanistic aspects of inflammatory pathways underlying cancer and multiple other pathologies. Inflammation is an early response to various infections and damage initiated by the immune system.

Many viruses that have devastating results in humans, such as SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and influenza, originate from pathogens in non-human animal species. These viruses can play a direct role in enabling the progression of viral-specific c

Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in women and the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Triple-negative breast cancer is among the most aggressive subtypes; its name refers to the fact that it lacks all three primary markers of breast cancer, making it particularly challenging to detect and treat. Although our ability to detect early-stage breast cancer has improved substantially over the past few decades, anticipating whether and how fast a tumor will progress to metastatic disease remains challenging. Dr.

Cells in our body communicate with each other in a highly selective manner. These cell-cell interactions form the basis of numerous physiological functions, such as neuronal wiring and immune recognition. Dr. Shin plans to explore the general principles of cell-cell communication by constructing a synthetic synapse and studying its organization and functional diversity. His findings will elucidate the mechanisms that organize cell-cell interfaces involved in immune cell recognition of cancer and in the cell-type transitions associated with cancer and metastasis.

In both embryonic development and disease, the same genetic mutation can lead to highly variable outcomes in different individuals. Dr. Lammers aims to shed light on the drivers of this nongenetic variability using the developing zebrafish embryo as a model system. By combining fluorescence microscopy and single-cell sequencing, he will test whether subtle differences in gene expression within individual cells can explain why some embryos with a given genetic mutation survive to adulthood, while others perish within the first 24 hours of their development.

Ammonia, a waste product of cellular activity, is cleared from the body by the liver and kidneys through a process known as the urea cycle. During the urea cycle, ammonia is converted to urea, and arginine (an amino acid) is generated. When liver cells become cancerous, the urea cycle pathway stops functioning and cancer cells must import arginine from outside the cell. When cancer cells are prevented from importing arginine (via removal of arginine from the diet or genetic removal of the transporter), tumors do not grow, suggesting that arginine is critical for cells.

Endogenous retroviruses are viral elements of the human genome derived from retroviral infections of distant ancestors. Recent findings support the idea that these elements can cause immune system activation and inflammation. However, the crosstalk between endogenous retroviruses and the gut microbes that control immunity within the gut-and how abnormalities in this dialogue lead to inflammatory disorders-is not well understood.

Cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized the way we treat cancer; however, it is only successful in a small subset of patients. Optimally functioning CD8 T cells, the specialized killers of the immune system, are key to the success of cancer immunotherapies. While CD8 T cell function is highly influenced by their metabolism, little is understood about how metabolism changes the function of these cells. Dr. Watson hypothesizes that metabolism affects CD8 T cell function by altering how tightly its DNA is packaged (its epigenetics), leading to altered gene expression.

Neutrophils are important anti-microbial cells within the innate immune system. Recently, it has been shown that neutrophils can perform diverse functions, taking on both pro-inflammatory and pro-healing roles in response to tissue injury or insult. Dr. Siwicki's [Dale F. and Betty Ann Frey Fellow] goal is to understand how different neutrophil subtypes or states function to balance inflammatory versus regenerative processes, ultimately influencing tissue health and cancer.