ESR1 Data Fuel Novel Breast Cancer Strategies
March 15th 2022Mutations on the ESR1 gene, which encodes the estrogen receptor, have emerged as an important driver of resistance to endocrine therapies, which form the backbone of treatment for patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.
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Distinct Genomic Profile of Lung Cancer in Never Smokers Comes Into Focus
February 10th 2022A growing recognition of the distinct clinical, pathological, and biological features of lung cancers that arise in nonsmokers is fostering greater interest in examining the molecular underpinnings of lung cancer in this patient subset.
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Making Progress Against the Blood-Brain Barrier
January 31st 2022Primary and metastatic brain tumors present a significant therapeutic challenge, in large part because they are protected by the blood-brain barrier, a highly restrictive interface between the bloodstream and the brain that prevents most drugs from accessing the brain parenchyma.
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Nectin-4 Emerges as a Therapeutic Target in Urothelial Carcinoma and Beyond
January 2nd 2022Most ongoing clinical trials exploring nectin-4 as a target involve studies of enfortumab vedotin and its potential synergy with immune checkpoint inhibitors in bladder cancer, while several other early-phase studies are testing novel agents in solid tumors.
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Persistent Development of WEE1 Pathway Inhibitors Begins to Pay Off
July 16th 2021The lead novel candidate, the WEE1 inhibitor adavosertib, has been tested in more than 50 completed or ongoing clinical studies but has yet to proceed to a phase 3 trial despite showing promising safety and efficacy as monotherapy and in combination with a range of other cancer therapies.
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Emerging Immune Checkpoint Research Focuses on CD137
July 8th 2021During the past decade, a growing number of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors gained FDA approval to treat a wide range of cancer types. Their stimulatory counterparts also emerged as sought-after anticancer targets but have proved much more challenging to manipulate therapeutically.
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CD20-Targeting Antibodies Are Shaping a New Landscape for B-Cell Cancers
June 16th 2021Among the pioneering targets for antibody therapy was CD20, the pursuit of which ultimately led to the first FDA-approved mAb for cancer therapy, rituximab, and defined a new era in the management of B-cell malignancies.
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Strategies for Targeting PI3K Proliferate
May 10th 2021Frequently dysregulated in cancer cells, the PI3K pathway has long been a high-priority therapeutic target in oncology. However, initial efforts with pan–class I PI3K inhibitors were hampered by disappointing efficacy and substantial toxicity.
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New Approaches Seek to Meet the Challenge of Graft-Vs-Host Disease
April 28th 2021The curative potential of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for many hematologic malignancies is hindered by the frequent development of graft-vs-host disease, a potentially fatal complication resulting from a complex interaction between donor immune cells in the graft and the host’s immune system.
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A New Crop of ER-Targeting Agents Takes Root
April 2nd 2021Although endocrine therapies have revolutionized the treatment of breast cancers driven by the estrogen receptor, the development of resistance remains a major challenge that limits long-term remission with currently available drugs.
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Ki-67 Is Poised to Advance as a Biomarker in Early-Stage Breast Cancer
March 24th 2021Although Ki-67 is a commonly used measure of cellular proliferation in breast cancer tissue, its utility as a biomarker for helping to guide therapy decisions has been clouded by technical and clinical questions.
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Bad Company: Concurrent Mutations Define Unique Subsets of NSCLC
February 18th 2021The identification of oncogenic driver mutations in non–small cell lung cancer to inform targeted therapy selection is the bedrock of clinical practice in this disease, with current estimates suggesting that more than half of patients harbor an actionable mutation.
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RET Joins the Ranks of Actionable Targets in Precision Oncology
February 1st 2021Over the past 2 decades, a growing number of targetable tumor-specific molecular alterations have been identified, ushering in the era of precision oncology. Now, alterations in the RET gene can be added to the list of druggable targets.
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TILs, the Ultimate in Personalized Immunotherapy, Move Closer to Market
November 24th 2020November 24, 2020 - Until now, the field of cell-based immunotherapy has been dominated by chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, with groundbreaking FDA approvals for 3 drugs across several types of hematologic malignancies. In solid tumors, however, CAR T-cell therapies have yet to gain ground.
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Interest Builds for Targeting TIGIT Checkpoint
September 15th 2020TIGIT, an inhibitory immune checkpoint that plays a central role in limiting antitumor responses, is attracting robust interest in the research community as a novel target for combination therapies across a range of cancer types, particularly solid tumors.
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New Era for Targeting HER2 Beckons in Breast Cancer and Beyond
September 3rd 2020Precision medicine advancements are opening a new chapter in the development of anticancer therapies that target the HER2 pathway, resulting in 3 approvals for breast cancer in less than a year and raising hopes for attacking other cancer types.
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HRD Testing Heralds a New Biomarker, but Questions Linger
August 5th 2020Homologous recombination, one of the major mechanisms of defective DNA repair, has emerged as a bona fide therapeutic target, yet its optimal use as a biomarker for patient selection remains a clouded scientific question.
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A New Generation of Drugs Targeting PD-1/PD-L1 Takes Shape in Oncology
June 8th 2020Over the past decade, immunotherapy has established itself as one of the pillars of cancer treatment, thanks in large part to the success of monoclonal antibodies that target the immune checkpoint protein PD-1 or its main ligand, PD-L1.
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