Damon Runyon News

Two Damon Runyon alumni were elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Azad Bonni, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’96-‘97) at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, was recognized for discovering fundamental signaling networks governing brain development and how deregulation of these circuits contributes to cognitive disorders.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive and hard-to-treat form of breast cancer. Doctors have observed that TNBC patients with higher numbers of immune cells in their tumors seem to have better survival than those with fewer, but it's not well understood why. Damon Runyon Fellow Leeat Yankielowicz-Keren, PhD, and Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist Sean C.

One of the greatest challenges doctors face is predicting, which patients will respond to a particular cancer therapy. Ash Alizadeh, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator '14 - '17) and David Kurtz, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Physician Scientist '16 - '20), at Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new blood test to guide doctors when treating diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). This research was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Christine Mayr, MD, PhD, (Damon Runyon Innovator ’13-‘15), Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator ’13-’16), and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, report new results that suggest malfunctions in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing may be driving chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). mRNAs carry the information encoded in DNA, which is then translated into proteins. Changes at both the DNA and mRNA level can result in malfunctioning proteins.

Matthew G. Vander Heiden MD, PhD (Fellowship Award Committee Member, Fellow ’06-’08, Innovator ’11-‘13) and colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and MIT’s Koch Institute, Boston, have found a new reason pancreatic cancer patients lose weight. They observed in mouse models that tumors interfered with the pancreas’ ability to secrete enzymes that digest food. Unable to obtain enough nutrients from food, the mice entered starvation mode in which their bodies broke down fat to survive.

John Mendelsohn, MD (Damon Runyon Grantee ’72-’74), President Emeritus of MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, shared the 2018 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science with former Damon Runyon Sponsors Tony Hunter, PhD, at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, and Brian J. Druker, MD, at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Portland. Dr. Mendelsohn led the development of a novel targeted therapy: the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab (Erbitux®). His efforts resulted in its approval by the FDA for the treatment of colon cancer and head/neck cancer.

Researchers have long been aware that several viruses have an innate ability to kill cancer cells. Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Fellow ’13-’16) and Jedd D.

Five Damon Runyon alumni are among the 19 individuals named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators this week. These scientists were selected because they ask hard questions in uncharted territories of biology and have the potential to make breakthroughs that will benefit humanity. The appointment provides flexible funding of $8 million over a seven-year term for each scientist, enabling them to pursue provocative fundamental questions of critical importance to biomedical progress.

Benjamin L. Martin, PhD (Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator ’17 – ’20), Stony Brook University, New York, received a 2018 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research. Recipients receive $200,000 per year for up to three years and opportunities to present their work to scientific and business audiences, helping to bridge the gap between the academic and business communities.

Maria Mihaylova, PhD (Former Damon Runyon Fellow ‘13-’16) of the Whitehead Institute and MIT’s Koch Institute, Cambridge, has found benefits of intermittent fasting beyond weight loss. The researchers discovered that fasting for 24 hours dramatically improves stem cells’ ability to regenerate in the intestines of aged and young mice. When an injury or infection occurs, stem cells are key to repairing damage. This finding may help patients who suffer from GI infections or cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.