A new targeted drug, studied by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James), may offer a new treatment option for patients with blood cancers, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) whose disease has stopped responding to standard treatments.

Metabolites called nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA and can impact cancer's sensitivity or resistance to chemotherapy and radiation in brain cancer.

Findings from researchers at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center, published in Cancer Discovery, show how a specific nucleotide metabolite, called GTP, controls responses to radiation and chemotherapy in an unexpected way.

Epigenetically active drugs enable the cell to read parts oft he genome that were previously blocked and inaccessible. This leads to the formation of new mRNA transcripts and also new proteins, as scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospital Tübingen have now published. These "therapy-induced epitopes" could help the immune system recognize cancer cells.

Patients with cancer whose oncologist receives payments from industry appear more likely to receive some non-recommended and low value treatments, finds a US study published by The BMJ.

This finding raises potential concerns about quality of care, and the researchers say it may be appropriate to re-examine the current status of personal payments from the drug industry to physicians.

A research team from the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified a crucial epitope (a protein section that can activate the larger protein) on the CD95 receptor that can cause cells to die. This new ability to trigger programmed cell death could open the door for improved cancer treatments. The findings were published Oct. 14 in the Nature journal Cell Death & Differentiation.

A team of researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has developed a new method for using extracellular vesicles to enhance responses to immunotherapy in glioblastoma, potentially opening the door for wider use of engineered messenger RNA (mRNA) for cancer therapy. The study was published in Nature Communications.

An American born in 2019 will spend a larger share of their lifetime taking prescription drugs than being married or receiving an education, according to new research by Jessica Ho, associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State. She found that American males will spend approximately 48% of their lives taking prescription drugs. The number jumped to 60% for females.