The final paper from the lab of the late Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Developmental Biology Chair Kathryn Anderson reveals how a critical signaling molecule called WNT guides cells in the embryo from a state of high flexibility — known as "plasticity" — toward distinct, specialized identities. Completing it was a labor of love for her colleagues.

A team of scientists from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medicine found a small subset of T cells, called stem T cells, are responsible for making new T cells and for continuously replenishing them in chronic disease. The findings open the door to new treatment strategies for chronic conditions like cancer, autoimmune diseases, and infections.

With the Lecture Series on Cancer Breakthroughs, Gustave Roussy and The Lancet are joining forces to create a high-level annual international event dedicated to major scientific advances that are transforming—or will transform—the lives of patients at increased risk of cancer or living with the disease. These lectures aim to accelerate the dissemination of innovation and the sharing of knowledge for the benefit of patients worldwide. The inaugural lecture, to be held on 18 September in France and online, will focus on personalised cancer prevention. This first Lecture will be chaired by a distinguished guest, Professor Timothy R. Rebbeck, Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Evidence from the ARC-20 clinical trial, led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Toni K. Choueiri, MD, supports continued study of casdatifan for ccRCC, including the PEAK-1 international randomized phase 3 trial comparing casdatifan plus cabozantanib to cabozantanib alone in patients with metastatic ccRCC whose cancer progressed after immunotherapy.

New research published in Nature is first study to comprehensively interconnect clinical outcomes from patients receiving a HIF-2a inhibitor, with peripheral biomarker changes and associated tumor biology. HIF-2a inhibition with casdatifan resulted in deep and sustained suppression of the hormone erythropoietin in blood (serum EPO), which correlated with higher response rates and longer progression-free survival (PFS). A pooled analysis from four monotherapy cohorts (n=121) of the ARC-20 study showed that advanced kidney cancer patients treated with casdatifan lived beyond a year without cancer progression (median PFS of 12.2 months) despite multiple prior treatments with other standard regimens.