For decades, retinoic acid has been a key part of the arsenal against the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. For just as long, scientists have wondered exactly how it works. The answer, Dana-Farber researchers have found, is by reprogramming the activity of two crucial pairs of genes with such precision that the drug almost seems to have … Read more
Hispanic Americans are substantially more likely to develop liver cancer than non-Hispanic whites are. The disparities are more pronounced among women than men: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hispanic women had more than twice the rate of liver cancer incidence than white women between 2011 and 2015, the most recent … Read more
As head of marketing for a leading international news agency, Kelly Ives routinely worked with journalists across the globe. When it came to chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), however, it was her own reporting skills that led Ives to a life-changing treatment. Ives was a 37-year-old mom with a career and three young children, including an … Read more
Although stem cell transplantation is the only current therapy with the potential to cure myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), it is rarely used as an initial treatment for older patients because it hasn’t been proven superior to other therapies. New research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators stands to overturn that practice. In a clinical trial involving 384 … Read more
Researchers at Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have created a novel Molecular Oncology Almanac that combines an algorithm, or computational method, for interpreting genomic alterations in a patient’s tumor, along with a knowledge base of molecular changes reported to be associated with tumor behavior. They say that the components of this … Read more
Studies in large populations have shown that people who have a near relative with a form of lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have an increased risk of developing these diseases themselves. Both lymphoma and CLL are relatively uncommon: the average person’s lifetime risk of developing CLL, for example, is 0.57%, according to the American … Read more
New research has yielded the strongest evidence yet that irisin, a hormone discovered by Dana-Farber’s Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, that is produced in the body by muscular exercise, can by itself improve cognitive functions and potentially reverse some of the memory-destroying effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Reporting in the journal Nature Metabolism, Spiegelman and co-authors from Massachusetts … Read more
Each time the UPS truck makes its way up Becky Baker’s driveway in Lyons, New York, her 3-year-old grandson, Cal, is certain there’s a package for him. Today, the delivery is in fact for Cal — but not exactly the drivable mini Jeep he was hoping for. “Those are your diapers, buddy,” his grandmother says, … Read more
Cancers originating in the bone, called primary bone cancers, are rare and account for less than 1% of all cancers. There are numerous types of primary bone cancers, and in most cases, the cause isn’t known. Primary bone tumors can have changes in the DNA of the cancer cells, but those DNA changes are acquired … Read more
The shock of a new cancer diagnosis was still settling in for Isabel Nordby when she and her parents made a decision that could greatly impact the teenager’s future — if and when the time is right. Before starting her chemotherapy protocol for Ewing sarcoma in April 2020, Isabel, then 15, had one of her … Read more
Thoughts of having a family may be the subject of an idle moment’s reverie for many young people. A cancer diagnosis can make them inescapable. Not all cancer treatments have an impact on fertility, but for those that do, patients who hope to have children in the future — or simply wish to leave open … Read more
Despite breakthrough treatments for high-grade serous ovarian cancer, about 80 percent of patients relapse within two years, often resistant to treatment. The good news is that Dana-Farber scientists are pursuing multiple avenues of research that very well may improve outcomes. “A number of patients develop progressive disease at a later point, potentially indicating that a … Read more
Drugs that contain radioactive isotopes — forms of chemical elements that emit radiation — are known as radiopharmaceuticals. Radioisotopes have been used to treat cancer as far back as the 1940s, but the field has really taken off just in the past few years as researchers explore their potential in cancer. How are radiopharmaceuticals used … Read more
How did teenager Noah Zierfus stay grounded in the face of a cancer diagnosis? With his perfect trifecta of family, friends, and football. The Springfield, Vermont native was a junior in high school when he noticed he had something like a cyst. The doctors told him it was nothing at first, but Noah and his … Read more
The first time they met, in the break room at work, Raunada Bryant remembers struggling with her heavy Southern accent to pronounce Kristen Donoghue’s first name. Giving up with a laugh, she took to calling her new colleague “K” — not knowing the critical role they would soon play in each other’s lives. Donoghue was … Read more
The time may not be far off when the treatment for a person’s ovarian cancer can be tailored to their malignancy using drugs selected by testing on “organoids” — miniature 3-D clusters of cancer cells grown from a patient’s own tumor cells. Although ovarian organoid tests are not yet being used to guide treatment decisions, … Read more
Although multiple myeloma is relatively rare — accounting for about 2% of all cancers — it is twice as common among African Americans as white Americans. Every year, nearly 35,000 new cases of the disease are diagnosed in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. About 24% of those cases are in African … Read more
After successfully donating stem cells to her brother, Drew, during his treatment for the blood disorder aplastic anemia, Sarah Montgomery was ready and willing to make the life-saving gesture again. When the call came to do so, however, she was forced to decline for a very understandable reason: Her own stem cell transplant. In the … Read more
When Michael Voisine went to the doctor in 2017, he had just one symptom: a burning sensation on his skin, right around the corner of his stomach. After a CAT scan, he was rushed into the operating room for an emergency appendectomy. But doctors found more than just an inflamed appendix: They also discovered an … Read more
When Minnesota native Charles “Woody” Hubbell went to college, he thought his biggest hurdle would be the culture shock of attending an east coast school that he had never visited in person. But his freshman year, he fell completely in love with the Boston College community and his friends as he pursued a major in … Read more