A new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers has identified a possible explanation for why some cancers don’t respond to immunotherapy. In an analysis of a Phase II trial investigating the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab in 24 patients with endometrial cancer, the team found faulty DNA repair in tumors was…

Sponsored content brought to you by Strata Oncology CEO and co-founder Dan Rhodes, PhD, describes how molecular testing of tumors as it exists today is insufficient to realize the full promise of precision cancer care, and how Strata has developed a new category of tests that provides comprehensive treatment selection…

The terms minimal residual disease, measurable residual disease, and molecular residual disease, interchangeably referred to as MRD, denote what is left after cancer treatment with curative intent. Originally used to monitor patients with hematologic malignancies, MRD is becoming increasingly important in the field of solid tumor oncology because of its…

Harvard researchers have shown that a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids enhances immunotherapy response in mouse models of bladder cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma. They also revealed that consumption of high levels of omega-6 fatty acids—common in American diets—was associated with a poor response to immunotherapy that could be…

FoundationOne Tracker, an assay developed by Foundation Medicine leveraging artificial intelligence with ctDNA detection in plasma has been granted a breakthrough device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the detection of molecular residual disease (MRD) in early-stage cancer after curative therapy. The test is the result…

Sponsored content brought to you by The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can offer considerable advantages over the detection of other material in the peripheral blood, namely cell-free and circulating tumor DNA. Being a whole tumor cell, CTCs can be analyzed in their entirety, revealing a number of insights…

Researchers at Columbia University Department of Biomedical Engineering have engineered a novel probiotic strain of bacteria that can safely deliver immune checkpoint inhibiting nanobodies directly to tumors. When tested in cancer-bearing mice, a single dose of the bacteria continuously produced and released the anti-PD-L1 and anti-CTLA-4 nanobodies, triggering an immune…

Alex Trebek appeared well en route to surviving pancreatic cancer this past summer when his doctors followed up his initial successful chemotherapy with an undisclosed immunotherapy. That move backfired. “I was doing so well. And my numbers went down to the equivalent of a normal human being who does not…

A new compound has been discovered that disables a key DNA repair pathway involved In cancer drug resistance. The potential drug, found by researchers at MIT and Duke University, enhances the effects of cisplatin, a popular cancer chemotherapy. The paper appears in the June 6 issue of Cell. Cisplatin is a…

Mayo Clinic Laboratories and German diagnostics developer Numares will partner to develop clinical diagnostic tests designed to measure clusters of risk factors rather than individual biomarkers, through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed. The diagnostics to be developed will target specific diseases that include cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and…

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) plans to use Natera's Signatera custom circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) assay in a Phase II study designed to assess the pharma giant’s cancer immunotherapy Opdivo (nivolumab) as an adjuvant treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Under the collaboration, whose value was not disclosed, BMS will use…

Cofactor Genomics said it will partner with the NIH’s National Cancer Institute and three unnamed academic and pharma institutions to demonstrate the clinical utility of the company’s Cofactor Paragon immune-profiling assay, through a collaboration whose value was not disclosed. The collaboration will focus on using Cofactor’s RNA-based immune profiling technology…

Biocept said today it will partner with University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center on a clinical validation study of the company’s PD-L1 assay for patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Under the collaboration, whose value was not disclosed, Sandip Patel, M.D., an assistant professor of UCSD…

Five features predict response to checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) chemotherapy across a wide range of cancers, research indicates. The findings, in Nature Genetics, could drive the personalization of cancer treatment by identifying people most likely to benefit from immunotherapy. They could also widen the use of immunotherapy, as several groups of…

Minimal residual disease (MRD) testing is not new. Pioneered by scattered research groups more than 30 years ago, it spread rapidly from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, when it was adopted as standard practice for the clinical monitoring of virtually all childhood and many adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)…