Posts by tag
immunotherapy
Curious, Rejected,Accepted: An ESO Fellow’s Road to Becoming an Oncologist
It was 2018, and I was a fifth-year medical student at Yerevan State Medical University. Word spread that our new oncology professor was someone extraordinary: Gevorg Tamamyan - a Harvard-trained, Nature-published pioneer of pediatric oncology in Armenia and president of…
Microbiota-Derived Bile Acids as Androgen Receptor Antagonists Enhance Anti-Tumour Immunity
The gut microbiota can transform cholesterol-derived bile acids into metabolites capable of blocking androgen receptors and strengthening anti-cancer immunity. The study, published in Cell, April 15, demonstrates how one of the microbiota-derived secondary bile acids is capable of suppressing tumour…
What Caught Our Eye in April: Oncology’s Top Moments
April 2025 marked a significant month in oncology, with notable advancements in cancer treatment and research. Here’s a summary of the most compelling studies and recent breakthroughs that caught our eye this month. Popular CT scans could account for 5%…
What If the World’s Leading Prostate Cancer Epidemiologist Opened a Restaurant? A Conversation with Lorelei Mucci- A Harvard Scientist, A Mother, A Leader
I always close my interviews with a signature question: "Who should I speak with next?"It’s a small but revealing moment — a window into whom the giants of oncology admire, learn from, and find truly compelling. When I posed the…
Could this dual approach be the frontier that finally gets immunotherapy to work for MSS colorectal cancer?
It is often said in medicine that the only true constant in facing life-threatening diseases is change. Nowhere is this more evident than in oncology, where advances in chemotherapy, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and other novel agents continue to spark hope.…
Radiotherapy prior to immunotherapy is the best treatment sequence for melanoma related brain metastases
Patients with melanoma related brain metastases achieve reduced risk of progression and better overall survival if they receive radiotherapy before immunotherapy as opposed to the other way round. The meta-analysis study, abstract RADT-04, presented at the Society of Neuro Oncology…
Study helps solve the puzzle of checkpoint inhibitor myocarditis
The immune reaction that occurs in the hearts of patients taking checkpoint inhibitors who develop immune checkpoint myocarditis may be distinct from the immune responses occurring in the tumours of these patients. The study, published in in Nature, 6 November,…
Rise in initiation of immunotherapy at the end of life
Immunotherapy is increasingly being initiated in the month prior to death in patients with stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer, melanoma, and renal cell carcinoma. The US study, published in JAMA Oncology, online January 4, showed the practice was more common…
Combination immunotherapy with novel immune-oncology agents benefit NSCLC patients in presurgical setting
Patients with resectable non-small-cell lung cancer show improved major pathological response rates with combination immune oncology agents versus single-agent immunotherapy. The NeoCOAST trial, published in Cancer Discovery, 14 September, demonstrated that combining the anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody durvalumab with other novel…
Cracking RAS: It took over 30 years to hit this ubiquitous oncogene – was it worth the wait?
RAS oncogenes and their proteins have central roles in almost all cancers, including leukaemias, multiple myelomas, skin cancers and many solid tumours, making the RAS protein family an ideal cancer target. But efforts to develop clinically efficacious drugs to target…