Here are a few newsworthy items in the world of cancer research:

• A recent post on the NIH Director’s Blog, provided details of Dr. Roger Tsien’s (Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 2008) innovative imaging method to infuse electron microscopy with color. For more, see article in Cell Chemical Biology.
• Scientists at Dana Farber have found a potential explanation as to why younger cancer patients are more vulnerable to treatment toxicities. They report in Cancer Cell that tissues in developing organs are more susceptible to cell death when exposed to chemotherapy and radiation.
• Bioinformatics sheds light on new combination therapies to fight breast cancer. The analysis was conducted by researchers at the Institute for Research of Biomedicine in Barcelona.  An exhaustive assessment of the pairing of 64 therapies allowed scientists to identify 10 new combinations previously untested that may have potential for breast cancer treatment.  More in Cancer Research.
• Addressing the matter of diversity and inclusion in cancer clinical trials was the topic of a recent New York Times article by Denise Grady. While more innovative treatments like immunotherapy are taking off, most patients benefiting from these therapies are mainly white. A major obstacle facing people of color include less awareness of medical studies.  Researchers are very aware of the issue and are trying to rectify it.

Surfing the web, I uncovered these news items worth sharing

• As part of a clinical trial, doctors at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences successfully injected a cold virus into a woman’s brain tumor in an effort to eradicate it, making her the first person in the United States to participate in a clinical trial using this method, which incorporates immunotherapy.
• A recent post on the NIH Director’s Blog, shared details of new research published on epigenetic patterns in glioblastoma with emphasis on a paper published by researchers at Dartmouth. The findings were first reported in Nature Communications.
• Scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified specific genomic changes that are significant to the development of testicular cancer. Read more on their findings in Nature.
• A recent study published in Digestive Diseases and Sciences on adenoma prevalence in two Latino subgroups, specifically Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, revealed the prevalence of adenomas, advanced adenomas, and proximal neoplasia was high among both subgroups. These findings have implications for CRC screening and surveillance among the increasingly growing Latino population in the USA.