Cancer Nexus Blog

With support from the UMass Cancer Pilot Grant Program, Lucio Castilla, PhD, is working on a way to deliver a targeted therapy for inversion(16) acute myeloid leukemia. he is collaborating with S. Thai Thuyamanavan, PhD, an expert in drug delivery, to develop an antibody-nanogel conjugate capable of delivering a small molecule to AML cells and kill them.

A cancer diagnosis impacts more than the patient. Timothy Sannes, PhD, tells us about how he helps patient caregivers as well.

Learn why the TP53 mutation in acute myeloid leukemia is particularly worrisome and what Shyam Patel, MD, PhD is doing about it.

John Harris, MD, PhD, and team are using their UMass BRIDGE funds to perfect their self-delivering drug that enhances the immune system in melanoma. They are optimizing the drug to ensure durability, efficacy and efficiency to help bring the drug forward to clinical trials.

For the fifth consecutive year the UMass Cancer Research Office received commendations from ECOG-ACRIN. To top it off, this year they received FULL commendation for the first time!

Dohoon Kim, PhD, and team are poisoning cancer cells from the inside. With the help of a UMass Chan Bridge Fund, they aim to develop a drug that blocks a detoxifying enzyme from neutralizing a dangerous metabolite within cancer cells. Without this detoxifying enzyme, the cancer cells will die.

With the help of a UMass Chan BRIDGE Fund, Fiachra Humphries, PhD, and team are designing a way to reawaken the innate immune system. They are developing a nanobody to turn off a receptor and enable immune cells to infiltrate and kill tumors.

Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, Memorial website pages.

Rachael Sirianni, PhD, is working on ways to deliver drugs directly to the brain. Her research has broad implications for treating brain cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, and Loretah Chibaya, PhD, explain how they successfully activated the immune system in a pancreatic cancer model.

This summer, Prabhani Atukorale, PhD, and Jason Shohet, MD, PhD, will work with a visiting student, on developing an immunotherapy for neuroblastoma.

Jason Pitarresi, PhD, tells us about his research path and the tools he is using to better understand pancreatic cancer.

Matthew Hemming, MD, PhD, is developing new therapies for gastrointestinal stromal tumors and other sarcomas. He is also identifying new biomarkers for assessing risk of tumor recurrence.

Jessica Spinelli, PhD, explains how tumor cells can survive without oxygen

Samantha Sarli and Jonathan Watts, PhD are working on a novel drug to treat glioblastoma.

The Cancer Research Office is commended for their outstanding performance — once again!

Shyam Patel, MD, PhD, explains a new method for detecting blood cancer before it takes root.

Sharon Cantor, PhD, explains why chemotherapy for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer doesn't always work as expected.

Jillian Richmond, PhD, discusses her T cell research and its application to diagnostics and therapies for lymphoma.

Follow Our Research Presentations at the AACR Annual Meeting 2022

UMass thoracic surgeons perform simulated surgery using a robotic platform to train for an emergency conversion to an open procedure.

David Cachia, MD talks about future neuro-oncology clinical trials at UMass Chan

A pilot study to develop new bioinformatic tools to identify fusion circRNAs in cancer has received funding from the UMass Cancer Center and PQHS

A study on the epigenetic vulnerabilities of metastatic breast cancer has received funding from the UMass Cancer Center

A pilot study to develop a unique approach to enhance immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer has received funding from the UMass Cancer Center