Damon Runyon News

Histologic transformation, when a cancer’s features shift dramatically and it presents as a new cancer type, can occur at any point in the course of disease or arise due to the selective pressure of cancer therapies. One of the most well-recognized examples of histologic transformation is the transformation of follicular lymphoma, a slow-growing cancer of the lymphocytes, to an aggressive lymphoma, typically a large B-cell lymphoma. Despite this being well-recognized in the clinic, understanding of the molecular changes that trigger this transformation remains limited. Dr.

New therapeutic approaches are urgently needed for children suffering from high-risk medulloblastoma, a form of pediatric brain cancer, where half of children will experience disease relapse leading to death. Dr. Prensner’s [Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation Clinical Investigator] work is focused on understanding the biological underpinnings of high-risk medulloblastoma and developing new treatment options. His team recently found that high-risk medulloblastoma may exploit an imbalance in the production of proteins from the tumor cell genetic material (RNA, DNA). Dr.

Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease with limited treatment options. New strategies are urgently needed, but few actionable therapeutic targets are known. By systematically testing diverse molecules against pancreatic cancer cells combined with gene knockout studies, Dr. Corsello [Leslie Cohen Seidman Clinical Investigator] has identified a starting point to simultaneously activate inflammatory signaling and cell death pathways.

Carli Newman is a recent graduate of Reed College, where she received her B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. A cancer survivor herself, she is motivated by her own experience with the disease and her connections with other patients and families to help develop more efficient treatments with fewer side effects.

Jayati Mondal graduated from Hunter College in May with a degree in Biological Sciences. Growing up in Bangladesh and seeing her father practice medicine as a cardiologist, she was drawn toward science at an early age. Though her father could no longer practice when the family moved to the United States, he continued to encourage her interest in biology. When her great-grandmother’s cancer metastasized to her brain in 2018, Jayati personally reached out to a neurooncologist, hoping to understand the diagnosis better.

Katelyn King holds a degree in Biology from Emory University. A Georgia native, Katelyn enrolled at Albany State University while she was still in high school, graduating in 2020 with both her high school diploma and an Associate of Sciences.  

Sangita Chakraborty is a recent graduate of Hunter College, where she earned a dual degree in Biological Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies with a minor in Public Policy. Born in Bangladesh, Sangita immigrated to Queens, New York with her family when she was four years old. After losing an aunt to cancer when she was in high school, she set out to pursue a career in cancer research as a physician-scientist. For her, the motivation was both personal and intellectual.

Thalidomide derivatives are a mainstay of treatment in multiple myeloma, a cancer of white blood cells called plasma cells. However, around one in ten individuals treated with thalidomide derivatives for multiple myeloma will develop a blood clot, which can be life-threatening. It is critical to determine how to continue to use thalidomide derivatives to kill myeloma cells, while working to understand why these drugs increase the likelihood of clotting. Thalidomide derivatives work by degrading proteins important to myeloma cell growth; Dr.

It has been long recognized that B-cell malignancies such as follicular lymphoma (FL) are dependent on interactions with nearby non-malignant cells for survival. However, this dependency has yet to be exploited therapeutically. Dr. Shanmugam aims to define the pro-tumorigenic growth factors in the environment around malignant B cells in FL and elucidate the mechanisms of how these growth factors promote FL cell survival and proliferation. This knowledge will enable the development of new treatments that block these interactions and new laboratory models of follicular lymphoma.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are a type of immunotherapy that uses genetically engineered T cells from patients to treat cancer. While a one-time treatment has the potential to generate long-term protection from relapse, CAR T cells often fail due to poor persistence. Dr. Mi recently studied samples from patients with durable remissions of leukemia and found that rare persistent CAR T cells share a distinct set of molecular and cellular features.