AACR Annual Meeting

Perry Kennedy, MD, postdoctoral research fellow, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, discusses RAS as a target as well as the NCI RAS Initiative.

Françoise Horand, director, R&D Operations, Erytech Pharma, discusses a study investigating the use of erythrocytes as a tumor antigen delivery system to target antigen-presenting cells and induce efficient immune response against tumors.

Graham Dixon, PhD, chief scientific officer, Onxeo, discusses a mechanistic study of the relative cytotoxicity of doxorubicin-loaded nanoparticle formulation versus doxorubicin in hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines.

Jayesh Desai, MD, honorary, Surgery, The Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, Clinical School-Austin Health, Royal Melbourne Hospital, discusses a phase Ia study exploring BGB-283 in patients with BRAF- or KRAS/NRAS-mutated solid tumors.

Norman E. Sharpless, MD, professor of Medicine and Genetics, chair, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, UNC School of Medicine, discusses how oncologists can best manage toxicities associated with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of patients with melanoma.

Junji Matsui, PhD, senior director, Eisai, discusses a preclinical study of eribulin (Halaven) demonstrating anti-proliferative activity in select soft tissue sarcoma cell lines.

Xifeng Wu, MD, PhD, chair, Department of Epidemiology, Division of OVP, Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences, director, Center for Translational and Public Health Genomics, professor, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the prognostic factor of obesity-related genes in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Fred Schumacher, PhD, MPH, associate professor, Case Western Reserve University, discusses a study that led to the identification of genetic risk factors of prostate cancer.

Wendy Setiawan, PhD, assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, discusses a study that examined differences in pancreatic cancer incidence across five racial/ethnic populations in a multiethnic cohort.

Thomas W. Dubensky Jr, PhD, chief scientific officer, Aduro Biotech, discusses a study of ADU-S100 and how it activates the human STING receptor, which is found to have presence in multiple tumor types.

Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, professor of Hematology and Oncology and director of the Tumor Immunology Program Area at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses triplet therapies for patients with melanoma and the sequencing challenges associated with the approvals of additional agents in the field.

Mark A. Rubin, MD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, vice chairman for Experimental Pathology, director, Translational Research Laboratory Services, Weill Cornell Medicine and New-York Presbyterian, discusses the advantages of whole-exome sequencing and how it compares with targeted sequencing.

George D. Demetri, MD, senior vice president for Experimental Therapeutics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, discusses the evolving and advancing field of sarcoma.

Karen Kelly, MD, associate director for Clinical Research, Jennifer Rene Harmon Tegley and Elizabeth Erica Harmon Endowed Chair in Cancer Clinical Research, professor of Medicine, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the results of the phase Ib JAVELIN Solid Tumor Trial.

Sangeetha Palakurthi, PhD, head of the Cancer Biology and Pharmacology Group at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses a study that utilized non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient-derived xenografts from patients on osimertinib (AZD9291) clinical trials to further refine therapeutic strategies.

More than one-third of patients with previously untreated renal cell carcinoma responded to the combination of high-dose interleukin-2 and an investigational histone deacetylase inhibitor entinostat.

Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, vice chair for Clinical Operations, associate director for Translational Research, and coleader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, discusses the CheckMate-141 trial, which found that treatment with single-agent nivolumab (Opdivo) reduced the risk of death by 30% and doubled 1-year overall survival (OS) rates compared investigator's choice of therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCCHN).

Samir N. Khleif, MD, director, GRU Cancer Center, discusses next steps researchers and physicians need to take with immunotherapy in the field of oncology.

The addition of three biological markers to conventional breast cancer risk models significantly improved the ability to distinguish women at high and low risk.

Anti–PD-1 therapy in the first-line induced responses in more than half of patients with advanced Merkel cell carcinoma, with encouraging durability to the responses.

Barry M. Berger, MD, FACP, chief medical officer, Exact Sciences, discusses a study demonstrating the benefit of utilization of the Cologuard screening test for colorectal cancer (CRC).

Angela M. DeMichele, MD, professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, discusses results of the HER2-positive breast cancer cohort of the phase II ISPY-2 trial, which investigated the neoadjuvant combinations of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) versus paclitaxel (Abraxane) and trastuzumab (Herceptin).

Treatment with single-agent nivolumab reduced the risk of death by 30% and double 1-year overall survival rates compared investigator's choice of therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Three currently available assays for PD-L1 expression exhibited a high degree of correlation in a comparative study involving archived lung cancer tissue.

The combination of ado-trastuzumab emtansine and pertuzumab was superior to the combination of paclitaxel and trastuzumab as neoadjuvant treatment for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.

The combination of the PARP inhibitor olaparib and the investigational AKT inhibitor AZD5363 resulted in durable responses in patients with solid tumors, with and without BRCA mutations.

Chest radiotherapy to treat a childhood cancer is a well-established risk factor for developing breast cancer in adulthood

Palbociclib may have antiproliferative effects when used as a neoadjuvant therapy for women with early stage breast cancer.