- The researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center discovered that cancer cells express DUX4, a gene responsible for certain muscular dystrophies, to protect themselves from the effects of immunotherapy, in particular – from immune checkpoint inhibitors. The implications of this research would be development of therapies that would target DUX4 and thus make treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors more efficient. The study is due to be published in Developmental Cell.
- Researchers from the University of Western Australia in collaboration with Telethon Kids Institute and 13 health research organizations looked into the genes in cancer samples and devised a way of using cancer samples to identify potential response to immune checkpoint inhibitors therapy before initiating immunotherapy treatment. This could help identify drugs that improve response to checkpoint inhibitors. The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.
- Researchers from the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center have come close to developing a blood test, based on a patient’s immune response, which may predict relapse of breast cancer. The study was published in Nature Immunology.
- It is known that cancer cells spread in the body by feeding on sugar. British researchers discovered that if deprived of sugar, cancer cells switch, with the help of a protein called AKR1B10, to fatty acids as a source of energy to boost their spread. The implications could be for diagnosis, as increased levels AKR1B10 may predict metastatic spread; and for management, which means development of new treatments that would prevent cancer cells from using fatty acids. This preclinical study was published in Nature Communications.
Meet Your New (Research) Friend JANE
Are you struggling to identify journals to submit your manuscript to? Do you want to check to see if there is any other literature written about your topic? Or maybe, look for researchers doing similar work?
JANE, the Journal/Author Name Estimator, is a program that can help you answer these questions and more.
By inserting information on your topic or manuscript (title and abstract, or simply keywords) JANE goes to work comparing the text you submitted with PubMed records, identifying the best matching journals, articles, or authors.
Behind the scenes, a similarity score calculation between each article and the text you shared is done. JANE then identifies the top 50 articles that are most similar to your text. Authors and journals are also combined to create a confidence score, which is then provided to you.
To learn more about JANE or explore other applications of this nature, don’t hesitate to ASK US!
Do You Know Any MSK Authors? Ever Wonder about MSK Research Activities?
The 2018 Synapse Publications Report is now available to help answer these questions! This online report compiled by the Library provides an analysis and 
documents the publications produced by MSK researchers, clinicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals for the year in review. The final bibliography includes 4,602 works, comprised of references to research and conference papers, reviews, meeting abstracts, books and book sections.
Synapse is a public facing resource and the authoritative bibliographic database developed and maintained by a skilled team of information professionals. Their ultimate goal is to track the wealth of knowledge attributed to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
I hope that by browsing the 2018 Synapse Publications Report, readers will gain a sense of the contributions of MSK authors to the ever-growing body of scholarly literature. Readers can also view past reports.
Your thoughts about this report would be welcomed — feel free to send me an email and let me know what you think.
Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services