Scientists at Dana-Farber and other institutions have shown that compounds that mimic key proteins on white blood cells can inactivate HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, and potentially protect against exposure to the virus.
Researchers are applying the knowledge they’ve gained in previous clinical trials as they look into how immunotherapy might provide additional treatment options for patients with recurrent cervical cancer.
So far, CDK4/6 inhibitors have been shown to be most effective in treating advanced estrogen-receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
As scientists map ever more of the epigenetic disruptions that occur in cancer, the implications for cancer therapy are becoming increasingly evident.
This originally appeared on Vector, Boston Children’s Hospital’s blog. A novel screening method using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology has revealed new drug targets that could potentially enhance the effectiveness of PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors, a promising new class of cancer immunotherapy. The method, developed by a team at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, uses … Read more
Whenever an advance against cancer is reported, it’s easy to imagine that it came about in an orderly and straightforward manner.
The symptoms of peripheral neuropathy, which affects about one-third of patients receiving chemotherapy, include numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and feet. Some patients don’t experience these symptoms after treatment ends, but in other patients, they are long-lasting. There is currently no preventive or treatment for peripheral neuropathy, which is caused by the degeneration … Read more
As a pediatric dentist, Jay Schwab had a clear-cut enemy: dental disease in children and adolescents, and the apprehensions they faced in the dental environment. Cavities could neither hide from his drill nor fool his X-ray machine, and plaque could easily be scraped away. Generations of patients went away smiling and in good dental health. … Read more
In the high-stakes contest of hide-and-seek between cancer cells and the human immune system, the advantage doesn’t always lie with the body’s defenders. A new approach to treatment, known as CAR T-cell therapy, may shift that balance of power. Cancer cells conceal themselves from the immune system not by barricading themselves in an impenetrable shell, … Read more
In the fall of 2015, at the age of 44 – young for a person to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – Doron Broman was stunned to learn he had a large tumor on his pancreas that had metastasized to the liver. Facing only months to live, Broman would find himself in the right place … Read more
For patients with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable cancer that affects blood plasma cells, there are many new options for treatment that are producing better, and increasingly long-lasting outcomes. Approved options include immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies. More recently, immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapies and bispecific antibodies have been approved. There … Read more
The immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is the first therapy of any kind to improve survival in patients whose metastatic bladder cancer worsened after treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy. Keytruda proved so much better than chemotherapy in this “second-line” use that an international clinical trial was halted when the advantage became apparent. “This is very good news; … Read more
Since the early 2000s, when Dana-Farber scientists discovered that many cancer cells carry “checkpoint” proteins that ward off an immune system attack on tumors, a great deal of research has focused on the development and testing of agents capable of blocking those proteins. In many patients, such agents have sent cancers into long-term remissions. A checkpoint … Read more