News
Gene Therapy Is Halting Cancer. Can It Work Against Brain Tumors?
A type of gene therapy called CAR-T that has extended survival for thousands of patients with leukemia and other blood cancers is being adapted at UC San Francisco to treat people with glioblastoma, the most common and deadly adult brain tumor. This new more powerful version of CAR-T employs a novel
Advances in Targeted Therapy, Treatment Disparities Among Cancer Conference Talks
Advances in targeted therapy, cancer genomics and eliminating treatment disparities among the topics that will be presented by leading cancer researchers from UC San Francisco at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference, held April 5-10, in San
UCSF Scientists Build a Molecular ‘GPS’ to Guide Cell Therapies
The ideal therapy for a disease works exclusively at the site of the disease. But when it comes to the brain, which is wrapped in a protective barrier and contains thousands of different cell types, this ideal is very hard to achieve. Now, scientists at UC San Francisco have been awarded more than
Academic Spotlight: Juan Qin, PhD
Juan Qin, PhD, (pronounced “JOO-anh CHEEN”) grew up in Anhui Province, China in a small mountain village that was so remote that neighboring villages each spoke their own dialect. “We had very limited access to information, and people around me got cancer without receiving access to any treatment,”
Targeted Treatment of Rare Childhood Leukemia
Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare but aggressive childhood leukemia. While hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is curative for some patients, approximately half of all patients will still have their leukemia return following a transplant. Recent studies have identified that the
New Pediatric Cancer Marker, New Hope for a Treatment Target
Researchers recently identified a universal, essential biomarker for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma – and the biomarker could be a potential new target for treatment. Neuroblastoma accounts for 15% of all pediatric cancer deaths and is the most common source of childhood tumors outside of brain
Can a New Drug Candidate Cure Pancreatic Cancer?
UC San Francisco researchers have designed a candidate drug that could help make pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, a treatable, perhaps even curable, condition. The new drug candidate permanently modifies a wily cancer-causing mutation, called K-Ras G12D, that is responsible for