Category Archives: MSK in the News

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CIOs Without Borders

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Atefeh Riazi

Atefeh Riazi. Photo by Richard DeWitt.

Becker’s Hospital Review recently featured Atefeh Riazi, MSK’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, and her nonprofit CIOs Without Borders.

After visiting Guiyu, China in 2008 and witnessing people rummage through an enormous e-waste site, Riazi was driven to action. She founded a task force to reduce e-waste that eventually became the nonprofit CIOs Without Borders. Today, the organization focuses on providing health care technology and information to developing countries like Rwanda and Vietnam and is actively recruiting volunteers.  

Identifying Treatment Targets for Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer

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The work of a team of researchers from MSK and Weill Cornell was recently featured by Australia’s The National Tribune, and could lead to more targeted therapies for certain types of prostate cancer.

The study, published in May in Science, used sequencing analyses of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) to define four subtypes of disease, including two newly identified by the team. One of these subtypes, stem cell-like (SCL) tumors, makes up around a quarter of CRPC cases. The team determined factors involved in the growth of SCL tumors, and treatments are already being tested that may improve outcomes for these patients.

Demystifying Mosaic Mutations

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Dr. Diana Mandelker

Diana Mandelker, MD, PhD. Photo by Ethan Kavet.

The National Cancer Institute Cancer Currents Blog recently featured the work of MSK’s Dr. Diana Mandelker and her colleagues. A study published in Cancer Discovery reviewed data from more than 35,000 patients and identified 36 patients with mosaic mutations, alterations in cancer susceptibility genes (CSG) that occurred early in the patients’ embryonic development.

Researchers had believed these mutations were rare, instead thinking most cancer-causing genetic variations were due to heredity. This study found that they likely occur, at minimum, in 1 out of every 1,000 patients. Awareness of these mutations can help determine which screening, therapy, and reproductive counseling decisions are right for patients.