Cancer Nexus Blog

By diving into the mechanistic underpinnings of alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), Matthew Hemming, MD, PhD, and team revealed a targetable vulnerability ready for translation.

With support from the UMass Cancer Pilot Grant Program, Lucio Castilla, PhD, is working on a way to deliver a targeted therapy for inversion(16) acute myeloid leukemia. he is collaborating with S. Thai Thuyamanavan, PhD, an expert in drug delivery, to develop an antibody-nanogel conjugate capable of delivering a small molecule to AML cells and kill them.

Learn why the TP53 mutation in acute myeloid leukemia is particularly worrisome and what Shyam Patel, MD, PhD is doing about it.

John Harris, MD, PhD, and team are using their UMass BRIDGE funds to perfect their self-delivering drug that enhances the immune system in melanoma. They are optimizing the drug to ensure durability, efficacy and efficiency to help bring the drug forward to clinical trials.

With the help of a UMass Chan BRIDGE Fund, Fiachra Humphries, PhD, and team are designing a way to reawaken the innate immune system. They are developing a nanobody to turn off a receptor and enable immune cells to infiltrate and kill tumors.

Rachael Sirianni, PhD, is working on ways to deliver drugs directly to the brain. Her research has broad implications for treating brain cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

This summer, Prabhani Atukorale, PhD, and Jason Shohet, MD, PhD, will work with a visiting student, on developing an immunotherapy for neuroblastoma.

Samantha Sarli and Jonathan Watts, PhD are working on a novel drug to treat glioblastoma.

Shyam Patel, MD, PhD, explains a new method for detecting blood cancer before it takes root.

An early-stage research study of immunotherapy in melanoma has received funding from the UMass Cancer Center

We hope to understand how to develop targeted therapies that are effective at suppressing tumor formation in neurofibromatosis type 1, through work in various model systems.