A novel treatment approach using combination immunotherapy before and after surgery shows promise for patients with operable mesothelioma, according to a new study led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

An international team of scientists has revealed how rogue rings of DNA that float outside of our chromosomes – known as extrachromosomal DNA, or ecDNA – can drive the growth of a large proportion of glioblastomas, the most common and aggressive adult brain cancer. The discovery could open the door to much-needed new approaches to diagnose glioblastoma early, track its progress and treat it more effectively.

Researchers found that integrating an automated smoking cessation intervention for parents into pediatric primary care demonstrated increased treatment received and reduced cigarettes smoked. While additional interventions are needed to improve quit rates, the study indicates the benefits of pediatric primary care support in reducing parental smoking.

How rapidly gene expression in a single cell changes over time can provide insight into how cells might become more specialized. A new method to calculate RNA velocity, developed by researchers at Penn State and Yale University, overcomes limitations of previous methods improving researchers’ ability to understand the nuances of gene expression changes.