Oncology & Cancer

Immunotherapy uses a person’s own immune system to fight cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are one class of immunotherapy that block specific proteins from slowing the immune response. As a result, immune cells become more active and can more effectively kill cancer cells. However, most patients either respond poorly to checkpoint inhibitors or eventually become resistant to the treatment.

US President Donald Trump’s administration slashed cancer research funding by 31% in the first three months of 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to a Senate report released Tuesday that accuses the White House of waging a “war on science.”

Researchers from MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered that a class of peptides expressed in pancreatic cancer cells could be a promising target for T-cell therapies and other approaches that attack pancreatic tumors.

A key enzyme and its molecular pathway are critical to keeping certain immune cells active and away from “exhaustion,” according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed type of cancer worldwide. Up to 80% of the cases are related to environmental factors and lifestyle, such as poor diet, sedentarism, obesity, smoking or excessive alcohol consumption. Most colorectal cancers arise from adenomatous polyps, a precancerous lesion that may progress to a malignant tumor unless it is detected and removed in time.

In a new study led by the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, investigators show that using advanced MRI imaging and targeted focal therapy can help many men with low- to intermediate-risk prostate cancer safely stay on active surveillance long-term, helping avoid follow-up biopsies and delay—or even avoid—invasive treatments like surgery or radiation.

A protein identified by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center may drive resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors, a widely used form of immunotherapy to treat cancer. The findings, published in Communications Medicine, link glycoprotein non-metastatic melanoma protein B (GPNMB) to relapse after treatment and suggest it may help tumors evade immune surveillance in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

A team of researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center has found new insight into why some lung cancer patients do not benefit from tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte, or TIL therapy. Their findings, published in Nature Cancer, may help improve future ways to deliver this cellular immunotherapy for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

It’s natural to feel a wave of anxiety following a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Investigators of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology’s (VHIO) Radiomics Group, led by Raquel Perez-Lopez, have developed SALSA (System for Automatic Liver tumor Segmentation And detection), a fully automated deep learning-driven tool for the precise and completely automated detection and monitoring of liver tumors (hepatocellular carcinoma). Results of this work have been published in Cell Reports Medicine.