Category Archives: In the News

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.  

High Tumor mRNA Levels Predict Poor Survival, Aging Drives Melanoma Metastasis and More

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  • Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a method to quantify tumor-specific total mRNA levels from patient tumor samples. The researchers used this method on tumors from more than 6,500 patients across 15 cancer types and found that higher mRNA levels in cancer cells were correlated with an increased risk of disease progression and poor survival. The study was published in Nature Biotechnology.
  • The researchers at Johns Hopkins University investigated age-related mechanisms in melanoma metastasizing. While age-related changes suppress the growth of melanoma cells in primary tumors, this new study established aging as the factor that increased the spread of cancer cells to distant organs. This multicenter study was published in Nature.
  • Although cancer cells can have thousands of mutations in their DNA, only some drive cancer progression. Scientists from MIT created a computer model that can quickly scan the genome of cancer cells and identify mutations that occur most frequently and thus potentially are responsible for driving tumor growth. The study was published in Nature Biotechnology.
  • A researcher from the University of Texas synthesized a new molecule (ERX-41) that had proved, in in-vitro and animal experiments, to be effective against a broad spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer, pancreatic and ovarian cancers, and glioblastoma. The study was published in Nature Cancer.
  • Cancer vaccines are on the rise as a cancer treatment modality. They work by inducing an immune response, but tumors often resist this response via an immune escape mechanism. A group of researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and other institutions created a new cancer vaccine targeting this mechanism and increasing immune antibody levels. The vaccine was studied on animals, and human trials are expected to come next. The study was published in Nature.

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.