What happens when you ask cancer immunologists to draw their work? Neil Canavan found out when he asked nearly 50 scientists to do just that. Many of these drawings—some rough diagrams, some comic book-ready—are featured in a recent article from STAT. They include one by 2018 Nobel Prize winner—and former MSK researcher—Dr. James Allison, and another by MSK’s Dr. Michel Sadelain. More drawings can be found in Mr. Canavan’s recent book, A Cure Within: Scientists Unleashing the Immune System to Kill Cancer, which can be checked out from the MSK Library.

Today’s Science Sparks on the Library display screen.

Images are engaging ways to describe scientific concepts. Every weekday, the Library features an image from an MSK-authored publication on its homepage, an initiative we call Today’s Science Sparks (click here for the archive). These images are also displayed on the screen by the Library’s information desk. Next time you are in the Library, check out the screen—your graphic could be on it!

Last Monday, Dr. James Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel Prize in the category of Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to the development of cancer immunotherapy drugs. As MSK’s Dr. Jedd Wolchok told the Associated Press, “An untold number of lives … have been saved by the science that they pioneered.” Dr. Allison, now at MD Anderson Cancer Center, worked on this research in part while chair of the Immunology Program at MSK.

Two articles from Vox put the research into a larger context. The first explains that with Dr. Allison and Dr. Honjo’s findings, up to 15-20 percent of patients with advanced melanoma and lung cancer can now benefit from precise checkpoint inhibitor therapies that target the proteins CTLA-4 (studied by Dr. Allison) and PD-1 (studied by Dr. Honjo). MSK’s Dr. Michael Postow explains in the article that next steps in immunotherapy research include determining who the therapies will help and why they don’t help the majority of patients.

The second Vox piece looks at the economics of checkpoint inhibitor therapy. While immunotherapies save lives, they also can cost more than $100,000 per patient. The article includes this chart from MSK’s Dr. Peter Bach:

For more of Dr. Bach’s economic comparisons, visit the website of MSK’s Center for Health Policy & Outcomes.

Recent research indicates that more post-treatment screening does not impact colorectal cancer survival rates. A study published in JAMA and reported last week by Clinical Oncology News found no connection between post-treatment screening intensity and cancer recurrence detection when comparing 4,188 patients at 613 medical facilities with high-intensity screening to 4,341 patients at 539 medical facilities with low-intensity screening during the first three years of follow-up. Based on their data, the authors recommend following the guidelines of the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which calls for two CT scans in the first three years and biomarker testing every six months during the first three years post-treatment. The Clinical Oncology News piece quotes MSK’s Dr. Andrea Cercek, who states that unnecessary testing can lead to avoidable patient anxiety.