News: Host-Tumor Interactions Research Program

A Vanderbilt initiative to develop predictive imaging technologies that clinicians can use to better match patients with personalized care has received National Cancer Institute (NCI) funding.

Immunotherapies that take off the “brakes” on the adaptive anti-tumor response have worked well in melanoma and lung cancer but less so in breast cancers. That could change.

A recent study in Nature Communications defines the in vivo substrates of RIG-I like receptors (RLRs) during an oncogenic virus infection and reveals a relationship between cellular RNA processing and an innate antiviral immune response.

Mary Philip, MD, PhD, has been named a 2019 V Scholar and will receive $200,000 from the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

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).