On Friday, March 4th, Joan Massagué, PhD, Director of Sloan Kettering Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was awarded the 2016 Pezcoller-AACR International Award for Cancer Research. He will be presented with this award in New Orleans at the AACR annual meeting, April 16-20.

Dr. Massagué is being recognized for his discoveries inTGF-β biology, now considered fundamental in the understanding of cellular physiology.

Massagué will present his lecture, “Latent Metastasis,” Sunday, April 17, 5:30 p.m. CT, in New Orleans Theater B of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

“In recognizing the work of my research group, it is reassuring that the Pezcoller Foundation and AACR Award selection committee continue to value basic research for its ability to reveal the basis of clinical problems,” Massagué said.

The Pezcoller-AACR International Award for Cancer Research was established in 1997 and is presented each year to a scientist of international renown who has made a major scientific discovery in basic cancer research or has made major contributions to translational cancer research.

MSK in the news this week…

The Gunner Rätsch Lab at Sloan Kettering Institute is working on training an artificial intelligence to identify similarities between cancer cases that human doctors might miss. The software algorithm combs through over 100 million sentences taken from anonymized clinical notes of 200,000 people with cancer, and sorts symptoms, medical histories, and doctors’ observations into clusters. These clusters are then analyzed to look for patterns and connections between different comments and treatments. “We’re looking to exhaust all that data to try to find something interesting” says Rätsch.

Previous studies showed a murine norovirus that can enhance intestinal immune system development. Researchers from the Eric Pamer Lab at Sloan Kettering Institute have identified a molecule that mimics this norovirus, which reduces Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), a very serious hospital acquired pathogen, in mice. This molecule, a synthetic ligand called Resiquimod (R848) mimics the virus-derived RNA and binds directly to the protein TLR7 in the immune pathway. However, lead author Michael Abt warns, “It’s going to take a lot more research before it can get us to an actual therapeutic.”

M.C. Abt et al., “TLR-7 activation enhances IL-22 mediated colonization resistance against vancomycin,” Science Translational Medicine, doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf33802, 2016. Continue reading →

In honor of Valentine’s Day this past Sunday, we have a love story, big dreams, and a growing collaboration…

• 10 years, countless miles, and $80M later, Jennifer Goodman Linn’s legacy and love story continues to raise money for cancer research. “Cycle for Survival has been instrumental in funding essential rare cancer studies led by Memorial Sloan Kettering, including my work on leukemia and epigenetics,” said Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Dr. Ross L. Levine. “I’ve been riding at Cycle for Survival’s events for five years and feel so inspired.”

• Serena Burla, will compete at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles on Saturday. Five years after being diagnosed with synovial sarcoma in her right leg, and fearing she would never walk again, she thanks Memorial Sloan Kettering and Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Patrick Boland for not only saving her running career, but also her life.

• Press Release: MSK and Miami Cancer Institute at Baptist Health South Florida announced on Wednesday that Miami Cancer Institute will be joining Hartford Healthcare and LeHigh Valley Health Network as the third partner in the MSK Cancer Alliance.