Imagine not having access to affordable, healthy food. For many Americans, it’s a reality. A new study by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) shows that between 2003 and 2023, nearly five million people in the United States lived in food deserts, places with no grocery stores. Most of these deserts are in poor and rural areas and in places where people rely on public transit. At the same time, the number of food swamps or areas with mostly restaurants/fast-food locations increased nationwide. The findings are to be published today in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH).

Associate Professor Dr. Claudia Andl is examining how a simple probiotic can treat the damage from acid reflux disease, a condition that affects one-fourth of Americans and increases their risk for esophageal cancer.

Published today in Nature, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center report a previously unrecognized change in how the cell’s genetic material is packaged into structures called chromosomes, that helps explain how some aggressive cancers sustain unlimited growth.

AMHERST, Mass. — Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have designed non-toxic Salmonella bacteria to deliver viruses that are safe to humans but potent against liver and pancreatic cancer tumors — two cancers with an extremely poor prognosis. The researchers found that animal models treated with this combination of bacteria and viruses saw almost all their tumors eliminated and lived significantly longer.

A research team has identified TATA box-binding protein-associated factor 1 (TAF1) as a molecular switch that helps determine whether cancer cells resist or undergo ferroptosis, a regulated form of cell death driven by lipid peroxide buildup. 

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a previously hidden druggable site in a cancer-related protein that could open the door toward the development of a new generation of more precise cancer drugs. The finding also reveals important limitations in today’s artificial intelligence tools for drug discovery. The study, published in the June 2 online issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society [10.1021/jacs.6c05178], focused on PKMYT1, a type of protein known as a kinase that helps control how cells grow and divide. Because this process can go wrong in cancer, PKMYT1 has emerged as a promising target for new cancer drugs.

 

Drug delivery and diagnostic imaging often lack specificity, but a new “TRACE” method lets specially‑caged compounds stay inert until a target cell’s enzymes quickly remove the cage, potentially allowing for more precise drug delivery and sharper diagnostic imaging.

A recent paper in Nature Biotechnology examines problems and solutions for antibody-based therapies for solid pancreatic cancers and tumors of the head and neck.  

A new study in Science Bulletin presents DVSTP, a deep learning system that integrates pathology images with spatial transcriptomics and proteomics to map intra-tumor heterogeneity. DVSTP predicts molecular profiles from routine pathology slides, making spatial multi-omics more accessible. Whole–tumor 3D reconstruction reveals that SRSF6 drives immune exclusion and is associated with poor clinical outcomes.