Acs Research - Theorylab

Darren Roblyer and his lab has developed a small, painless wearable probe that a patient can wear over her tumor. It’s flexible and conforms to the shape of the patient’s breast, and it uses light to monitor the tumor’s response to chemotherapy. Why is this important? It offers a new way to assess treatment response in real time to see if a patient is responding to pre-surgical chemotherapy, providing a pathway to personalize the treatment plan for each patient. Dr. Roblyer is a two-time American Cancer Society grantee and Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University 2:27 – On why neoadjuvant (or pre-surgical) chemotherapy is important 3:45 – The challenges of pre-surgical chemotherapy 5:34 – An opportunity to adapt treatments for specific patients 7:54 – How his lab uses a wearable probe to monitor breast tumors 10:48 – How the technology can help identify who’s responding to chemotherapy and who’s not in the first week of therapy 12:21 – On why it’s safe and

Latina breast cancer survivors tend to be less physically active and experience more comorbidities (such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes) when compared to Caucasian breast cancer survivors. Christina Dieli-Conwright, PhD, is trying to change that. Her American Cancer Society-funded work is a three-phase exercise intervention involving Latina breast cancer survivors, with the clinical phase of the trial providing the knowledge and motivation needed for them to continue to exercise in a community setting. 1:23 – Christina Dieli-Conwright, PhD, Associate Professor and Clinical Exercise Physiologist at City of Hope National Medical Center 2:41 – On comorbidities, and why she’s focused on Latina breast cancer survivors 6:50 – On the relatively high rates of metabolic dysregulation—which includes metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and visceral adiposity—in Latina breast cancer survivors 11:14 – On the three phases of her exercise intervention, and results so far 18:14 – Some of the reasons Lati

You can’t attack cancer from every angle without targeting its metabolism. As Dr. Heather Christofk puts it, “cancer cells have a very different metabolism in general than most of their normal cell counterparts, and that is because most normal cells that are not dividing mainly want to use their nutrients to acquire energy. But most cancer cells want to use the nutrients they take up to build things. They use them to build more DNA and protein and lipids in order to grow and divide. “If we could come up with a way to block this altered metabolism found in cancer, we would be able to reduce the growth of the tumor, because this is fundamental—there’s no other way for the tumors to grow. “The challenge is finding the processes that are required for the tumor but not for normal tissues.” Heather Christofk, PhD, is Associate Professor of biological chemistry at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. 3:12 – Why is cell metabolism important? 6:30 – How is cell metabolism different in cancer cells? 8:15

What do you do when things get hard? What resources and experiences do you summon to help see you through a problem? Imagine being a young person, without much experience dealing with adversity, and learning that you have cancer. Abby Rosenberg, MD, MS, MA, has devoted her career to helping teens and young adults acquire the coping skills they need to manage stress after a cancer diagnosis and boost quality of life beyond treatment. In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Rosenberg talks about the challenges faced by young people with cancer and how she and her team are helping them acquire the individual, community, and existential resources needed to address the questions confronted by every cancer patient: “Why is this happening to me? What does this mean for me and my life? How does this change my identity and what I envisioned for my future?” Dr. Rosenberg is the director of palliative care and resilience research at Seattle Children's Research Institute. She’s also an associate professor in the divis

Cancer pain can affect all parts of a patient’s life and can impact their caregivers as well. Tamara Somers, PhD, helps patients develop strategies and skills for pain management to help them cope with their pain. And it’s not just about helping them increase their quality of life and decrease their stress, as “patients that have less pain may be more likely to adhere to their treatment recommendations or increase overall healthy behaviors, which can improve outcomes.” But what if a patient lives in a rural area far from a medical center? What if they’ve already missed too much work during treatment or spent too much time away from family? Or they’re in too much pain to travel? That’s why Dr. Somers is helping to pioneer the use of mobile health technology to deliver these interventions. Her American Cancer Society-funded study was one of the first (if not the first) to use video conferencing to reach patients who may not be able to visit a medical center to receive in-person treatment. Dr. Somers is a

Cancer treatment can lead to pain and symptoms that pose profound quality of life challenges for patients over the short and long term. Dr. Barbara Murphy is a medical oncologist who specializes in head and neck cancer, and she’s dedicated her research career to addressing cancer pain and symptom management. She spoke with the American Cancer Society about: 3:15 – The basics of head and neck cancer 6:10 – Two key preventive strategies: HPV vaccines and preventing young people from starting to smoke 9:15 - How treatment of head and neck cancer has improved 15:40 – Challenges faced by cancer survivors 21:20 – Patients with economic, social and emotional disadvantages Dr. Murphy is Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she is also Director of Pain and Symptom Management Oncology Services.

Skin doesn’t just keep your insides on the inside. It’s home to microbes that have a very important role in your health. Could modifying the skin microbiome affect the risk, severity, or onset of skin cancer? Dr. Julia Oh, an American Cancer Society grantee at Jackson Laboratory, is one of the leading voices in research into the role of the skin microbiome in cancer and other diseases. She talked about how the skin microbiome impacts cancer risk and progression. And she explained why she believes that, “through the microbiome there will be a new generation of preventative and treatment strategies for managing risk and also for improving treatment response.”

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men (after skin cancer), and while it can often be treated successfully, metastatic disease remains challenging. Lloyd Trotman, PhD—a former American Cancer Society grantee and Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory—is trying to change that. He and his team recently developed the first genetic mouse model for the treatment and analysis of metastatic prostate cancer. Now they are seeking to translate their findings into patients to “turn lethal prostate cancer into a curable disease.”* In this interview he talks about the challenges of metastatic prostate cancer, the exciting discoveries he and his team have made, and how his work is getting closer to patients. *https://www.cshl.edu/research/faculty-staff/lloyd-trotman/

If every cell in your body has the same DNA, the same 20,000 genes, then why are the cells different? Why are muscle cells different than neurons? The answer is epigenetics—changes in gene activity governed by influences outside the genes themselves. Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD, is one of the world’s leading experts on epigenetics and cancer. In this episode he covered a lot of ground, but he used clear examples to help us understand what epigenetics is and why it’s critical to attacking cancer. 3:50 – There’s a copy of your genome in every cell. How do you fit a 6-foot long string of DNA inside a nucleus that’s about 6 microns? Epigenetics! 8:30 – “Cancer has classically been thought of as a genetic disease, but…” 16:20 – On a new technology his team developed that enables them to see which genes are on and which genes are off in individual leukemia cells 19:45 – On how this tool could be used in therapies. 23:45 – On his lab’s progress over the past 15 years, as they’ve moved from studying the genome

Ovarian cancer is actually an umbrella term describing a variety of cancers that often originate, not in the ovary, but in the fallopian tube. And that has important implications for the early detection and treatment of cancer. Dr. Joanna Burdette leads a lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago that integrates “imaging, drug discovery, microfluidics, and basic biology to try and understand how and where ovarian cancers originate.” 4:00 – On profound changes to our understanding of ovarian cancer in recent years and the challenges of early detection 12:20 – On a device she and her collaborators built: a complete 3D model of a female reproductive system that has a 28-day menstrual cycle, facilitating research into cells that respond biologically like they would in the human body 21:30 – On how ACS funding impacted her career 23:45 – Her message for ovarian cancer patients and caregivers Dr. Burdette is Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Pro

Katherine Cook, an assistant professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine, has dedicated her career to exploring the association between obesity and breast cancer risk and outcomes. Here, she describes work showing that what moms eat can have a long-term impact on the health of daughters that can increase their breast cancer risk. She also talks about how the timing of weight gain can impact breast cancer risk, how obesity is associated with poorer response to chemotherapy, and how weight loss can lower breast cancer risk. And she described recent work showing that breast-specific microbiome populations are significantly affected by diet.

Andras Heczey’s research focuses on directing the immune system to attack cancer cells in pediatric patients. He was the first to show that natural killer T cells could be used, once modified, to attack neuroblastoma cells. Dr. Heczey—assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital—talked about his ongoing clinical trial, the challenges of taking research out of the lab and into the clinic to benefit patients, and what message he would share with cancer patients and their families.

"If you're a cancer patient today, you don't want tomorrow's solutions. You want today's solutions." That's why Bob Crutchfield is leading the American Cancer Society's efforts to drive the best ideas to market faster, so cancer patients can benefit from less invasive – and more successful – treatments. Mr. Crutchfield is the Managing Director of BrightEdge, the Philanthropic Impact Fund of the American Cancer Society, which invests in for-profit companies in order to advance the speed of commercial adoption of novel and innovative therapies, diagnostics, devices, and technologies.

Radiation has long been a common treatment for cancer patients, but in recent years, notes Dr. Charlie Benson of Georgia State University, it has been understood that, “besides the direct ability of radiation to kill cancer cells, it also has the ability to actually prime the immune system to recognize things that are different about cancer cells and to better attack and kill these cancer cells.” In this conversation, Dr. Benson talks about how radiation makes cancer cells better targets for the immune system (7:00). She also explains, given that low-dose radiation can enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapy, what research needs to happen for it to become the standard of care for patients (9:45). Finally, she talks movingly about being an African American female scientist; what it was like to grow up without seeing examples of minority females in science; and why she visits communities “to give people the image and the idea that there’s no particular way you have to look to be a successful scientist (17

Most people who die of cancer, die of metastasis. Approximately 90% of cancer deaths are from metastasis. It’s essentially when a tumor cell leaves the place it originally started, goes to another tissue, and builds a new colony. It’s an incredibly complex process, but two experts in the field have recently published work that brings the problem of metastasis into focus. Danny Welch, Professor and Associate Director of Education at The University of Kansas Cancer Center, and Doug Hurst, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, scoured the scientific literature—reviewing more than 10,000 publications—and defined the hallmarks of metastasis: 1. Motility and invasion 2. Modulation of the microenvironment 3. Plasticity/adaptability 4. The ability to colonize In this conversation they explained each of the hallmarks and what it all means for cancer patients.

"My lab studies pathways that are involved in drug response. We've gotten very interested in why drugs work and why they don’t work in the context of mainly solid tumors." So says Dr. Rolf Brekken, the Effie Marie Cain Scholar in Angiogenesis Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. A two-time American Cancer Society grantee, Dr. Brekken talked about his collaboration with an oncologist and new clinical trial, why basic science research is critical in the age of personalized medicine, and...pitching washers?

What role does the American Cancer Society play in cancer research? How is ACS working to move cancer research forward? Where will the Society's research program be in five years? William Phelps thinks about these questions every day. As the American Cancer Society's Senior Vice President of Extramural Research, he oversees the largest private, not-for-profit source of cancer research funds in the United States. In this conversation, Dr. Phelps provides insight into how the American Cancer Society is trying to maximize its impact on cancer research now and in the future.

When genomic DNA is transcribed into RNA, the RNA and DNA may get tangled with each other. This creates unusual RNA-DNA hybrid molecules, known as R-loops, that cause the DNA to be broken so that double-strand breaks form. Dr. Karlene Cimprich and her team at Stanford University have pioneered research into R-loops and have shown that R-loops are present in cancer cells, sometimes in excess. She’s joined in this conversation by Dr. Alan Zahler of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who leads a lab studying the regulation of pre-mRNA splicing and analysis of small RNA function and biogenesis. Together they discuss the science behind R-loops and what’s on the horizon.

Anna Sorace is developing advanced imaging strategies to detect early whether breast cancer tumors are responding to therapy. As she explains, "the eventual goal is to not just be able to monitor and predict response, but to be able to guide therapy interventions and better inform decision making for oncologists." In this episode, Dr. Sorace—a biomedical engineer and cancer researcher based at the University of Alabama at Birmingham—explains how imaging can guide personalized medicine and provide an extraordinarily detailed look at the molecular status of tumors and how tumors change during the course of therapy.

For years, Dr. Kathy Goss ran a successful research program that sought to understand the molecular events driving colorectal and breast cancer. Along the way she developed a passion for science communication and advocacy. Now she's using her unique blend of skills to help other scientists and advance cancer research. As the senior science writer and director for strategic partnerships at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. Goss not only helps individual scientists advance their research programs, she also promotes the importance of cancer research to the public and to legislators.