About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, public awareness about human papillomavirus (HPV), HPV vaccination, and the link between HPV and cancers was overwhelmingly low, particularly in Midwestern and Southern U.S. states. These findings are troubling because these regions have recently seen a marked rise in HPV-associated cancers. Notably, the lack of HPV and HPV vaccine awareness in the Midwest and South is alarming, as a majority of states in these regions have suboptimal HPV vaccination rates.

Rockefeller scientists engineered an enhanced CD40 agonist antibody to fight cancer that has improved efficacy and is administered in a way that limits serious side effects. In recent clinical trial of 12 patients, six patients saw their tumors shrink, including two who experienced complete remission. The findings have sparked a number of other clinical trials involving a variety of cancers. 

A research team co-led by UCLA investigators has found that pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug that helps the immune system attack cancer cells, can effectively shrink or eliminate tumors in patients with unresectable advanced desmoplastic melanoma, a rare and often aggressive form of skin cancer.

NRG Oncology (NRG), a National Cancer Institute (NCI) National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) group focused on improving outcomes for adult cancers, recently opened a new clinical trial “ARCHER” (NRG-GU015) to study a shorter duration of radiation therapy for patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer.

UC San Diego researchers have identified a microbial DNA signature in blood plasma that reliably differentiates primary liver cancer from metastatic colorectal cancer.

Many different mutational signatures, or "fingerprints" of DNA damage have been identified across different tumor types which can provide a record of environmental exposure or clues about the etiology of carcinogenesis. Most of the mutational signature characterization has been performed using tumors from American and European populations due to the availability of sequencing data in these regions from large-scale atlases such as The Cancer Genome Atlas and the International Cancer Genome Consortium. While some unique mutational signatures have been identified in various Asian populations, mutational signatures and their activity in tumors from Chinese patients have not been well characterized across cancer types.

Researchers from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have now identified mutational signatures that are highly active in a large Chinese population. They found that the majority of the mutation-causing processes were similar between American and Chinese populations. However, they did find differences in what the mutational signature activities were correlated with