News: Host-Tumor Interactions Research Program

Researchers in the schools of engineering and medicine are exploring the use of Raman spectroscopy for early detection of HPV-related cancers of the throat in order to reduce the need for biopsies and to offer less intensive therapies.

A drug currently in clinical trials as an anticancer agent might also be useful as a treatment for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The findings also suggests strategies for using the drug to enhance cancer immunotherapies.

John Karijolich, PhD, a member of the cancer center’s Host-Tumor Interactions Research Program, has been named a Pew Biomedical Scholar by The Pew Charitable Trusts. His laboratory investigates viruses associated with human cancer.

The grant from the National Cancer Institute, establishes a research center for advancing the understanding and treatment of small cell lung cancer. Vito Quaranta, M.D., will direct the new center.

Vito Quaranta, MD, and colleagues have found that treated melanoma cells enter a previously unrecognized “idling” state. These idling cells may be primed to acquire resistance mutations and may constitute the bulk of residual disease.

Richard Peek, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Digestive Disease Research Center (VDDRC) and chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, has been appointed to serve on the advisory council of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

Vanderbilt’s Pampee Young, MD, PhD, has been named chief medical officer of the American Red Cross.

Autophagy is the cellular equivalent of trash pickup and recycling — it is a process by which proteins, protein aggregates and damaged cellular organelles are degraded in order to reuse nutrients and promote cellular metabolism. Now researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found that autophagy also plays an important role in priming the body’s […]

The advent of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, notably colonoscopy, has reduced deaths from this common and deadly malignancy by 30 percent. Unfortunately, colonoscopy misses about 24 percent of small and flat polyps, which often develop into aggressive forms of CRC. Now Wellington Pham, Ph.D., and colleagues report that a novel fluorescent nanobeacon can discern normal […]

At the intersection of immunology and metabolism is a burgeoning new field: immunometabolism. It’s an area where Vanderbilt has exceptional strengths, said Jeffrey Rathmell, Ph.D., Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Immunobiology. “It’s an unsung area of expertise here,” said Rathmell, who is also professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology and professor of Cancer Biology. “There are […]