What prevents more cancer patients from enrolling in potentially life-saving clinical trials?
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Jun-2026 15:16 ET (11-Jun-2026 19:16 GMT/UTC)
A study by Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals researchers has overturned long-held assumptions about why more cancer patients don’t enroll in clinical trials that could potentially save their lives. They found that financial factors—not race or demographics—are the strongest predictors of participation in cancer research studies.
TAMEST (Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology) has announced Maralice Conacci-Sorrell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as the recipient of the 2026 Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship in cancer research. She was chosen for her pioneering research revealing how cancer cells harness nutrients to drive their growth and for creating targeted strategies to suppress otherwise untreatable cancers.
Experimental drug NU-9 shows promise in clearing toxic proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists tested NU-9 in a pre-symptomatic animal model of Alzheimer’s disease. Drug dramatically reduced brain changes that emerge near the disease’s onset. Researchers have hope that NU-9 could act as a potential prophylaxis to prevent Alzheimer's symptoms from appearing.
The University of Texas at San Antonio has received a $7 million gift commitment from longtime philanthropic supporter and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and his wife Linda Whitacre to advance research, student success and athletics.
The Whitacres have made a transformational $5 million commitment to honor the late William L. Henrich, MD, former president of UT Health San Antonio, whose visionary leadership and unwavering compassion shaped the university for more than a decade.
The gift will advance the institution’s nationally recognized expertise in metabolic health — an area of research and clinical care that includes diabetes, obesity and related conditions that profoundly affect longevity and quality of life. This investment will fuel groundbreaking discovery aimed at confronting the region’s diabetes crisis, where one in six South Texans lives with the disease, and will further strengthen UT Health San Antonio’s role as a leader in improving health outcomes for the communities it serves.
An additional $2 million commitment from the Whitacres will support the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and UTSA Athletics.
Proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are molecules that can eliminate disease-causing proteins, but developing them is often slow and complex, limiting how quickly new candidates can be tested. Now, researchers from Tokyo University of Science have developed a three-step "click chemistry" assembly line that rapidly builds functional PROTACs from simple building blocks. The resulting molecules successfully degraded a target protein in cells, paving the way for faster, more flexible development of protein-targeting therapeutics.
Ultrashort laser pulses - that are shorter than a millionth of a millionth of a second -have transformed fundamental science, engineering and medicine. Despite this, their ultrashort duration has made them elusive and difficult to measure. About ten years ago, researchers from Lund University and Porto University introduced a tool for measuring pulse duration of ultrafast lasers. The same team has now achieved a breakthrough that enables the measurement of individual laser pulses across a wider parameter range in a more compact setup.