Paul Kirsch of Greentree is a retired U.S. Marine and Reservist, teacher and administrator in the Northgate and Keystone Oaks school districts, and a former Keystone Oaks School Board member. He had his first job in sixth grade and worked post-retirement until he was 80, teaching education classes at a local college. Now at age 87, Mr. Kirsch’s upbeat attitude and enthusiasm for life hasn’t waned.
Oncologists faced with treating older women with breast cancer often must decide if the treatment may be more detrimental than the cancer. A study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sheds new light on this choice and suggests the rate of cancer recurrence or survival may be no different in treated vs. untreated elderly patients diagnosed in the early stages of the cancer diagnosed most commonly in women. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steffi Oesterreich, PhD, the Shear Family Foundation Chair in Breast Cancer Research Professor and Vice-Chair Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh; Co-Leader Cancer Biology Program, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (UPMC HCC); and Co-Director Women’s Cancer Research Center, UPMC HCC and Magee Womens Research Institute, is a co-author on the study.
People with cancer that affects the blood, bone marrow or lymph nodes are at elevated risk of COVID-19 vaccine failure, particularly those with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, according to new results from an analysis of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center patients. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Alan Wells, MD, DMSc, medical director of UPMC Clinical Laboratories and the Thomas Gill III Professor of Pathology in Pitt’s School of Medicine, is a co-author of these results.
University of Pittsburgh bioengineer Partha Roy, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Cell Biology, and Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, received awards from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institute of Health and the Magee Women’s Cancer Research and Education Funding Committee to investigate the role of actin-binding protein profilin1 in metastatic breast cancer — the second most common cancer among women in the United States. In 2021, an estimated 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in U.S. women, and around 15 percent of those cases are expected to be fatal.
DNA viruses, such as herpesviruses and poxviruses, are among the most prolific and deadly viruses on Earth. Their ability to proliferate widely is due in large part to the way these viruses incubate in the body. Many DNA viral infections can enter what’s known as a latent state, in which the person does not experience symptoms of illness, though the virus is still present and able to reactivate to a proliferative state later. Latent viral infections also express different markers than the proliferative phenotypes, rendering them invisible to current treatments and screening.
At the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, the Tumor Microenvironment Engineering Laboratory (TME Lab) is where researchers employ a quantitative approach that integrates microfluidics, systems biology modeling, and in vivo experiments to investigate the role of the tumor microenvironment on breast and ovarian cancer growth, metastasis, and drug resistance. The goal of the TME lab research program is to discover biomarkers that guide new drug development and improve prognosis, develop new strategies to optimize existing treatment protocols, and engineer microfabricated tools that enable screening and personalization of cancer therapies.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members who are also members of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center (PLRC) recently published several articles. The authors include:
Kidney cancer will have been newly diagnosed in over 73,000 patients in the United States in 2020, resulting in nearly 15,000 deaths.1 Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) represents the most commonly diagnosed subtype of kidney cancer, accounting for more than 75% of new cases. Approximately 30% of ccRCC patients have metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and about 33% will develop recurrent or metastatic disease following treatment, indicating poor prognosis for the majority of ccRCC patients. The signature genetic lesion in ccRCC is the loss of the tumor-suppressing Von-Hippel Lindau (VHL) gene, which results in tumors marked by an abundant vascular microenvironment. With funding from an FY18 Kidney Cancer Research Program (KCRP) Idea Development Award – Established Investigator Option, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Partha Roy, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Cell Biology, and Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, set out to develop an in-depth molecular understanding of ccRCC-associated vascularization in an effort to exploit this phenomenon as a therapeutic target.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steffi Oesterreich, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is a recipient of a METAvivor Translational Research Award. Dr. Oesterreich’s project is entitled “Targeting mesothelial – tumor cell interaction to treat invasive lobular cancer metastases.” This project was one of the 23 new grant awards for metastatic breast cancer research totaling $3,650,000.
Sometimes cancer comes back long after the original tumor has been treated and removed. This is called recurrent cancer. Cancer can recur in the same place as the original tumor or in other places in the body if the tumor cells spread. Cancerous cells can lie dormant for years. But what triggers these cells to reawaken hasn’t been well understood.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Nathan Bahary, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, and a medical oncologist and hematologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center, discusses with Erica DiNapoli for OncLive the importance of seeking targetable alterations in gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, as well as recent advancements in the space.
Oncorus, a viral immunotherapies company focused on driving innovation to transform outcomes for cancer patients and a company spun out of the University of Pittsburgh, recently initiated an initial public stock offering, raising nearly $90 million as it enters clinical trials on its oncolytic virus cancer therapy. That amount is being called the “largest IPO of a Pitt spinout” by the University’s Innovation Institute.
Roughly one in eight women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, and HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancers represent about 25 percent of all breast cancer cases. Though multiple therapies exist, most patients will develop metastatic disease and resistance to current treatments.
According to the American Cancer Society, a woman’s risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer during her lifetime is about one in 78. The majority of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed with metastatic disease that spreads to other parts of the body and have a low five-year survival rate.
The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine welcomes new affiliated faculty member Ioannis Zervantonakis, PhD.
According to the American Cancer Society, kidney cancer is among the top ten most common cancers in men and women. More than 73,000 new cases and nearly 15,000 deaths are predicted for in the US for 2020. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) — the most common subtype of tumor associated with kidney cancer — accounts for more than 75 percent of cases.
Pairing chemotherapy nanodrugs with a nutritional supplement can lessen devastating side-effects while reducing the amount of the expensive drugs needed to treat cancer according to a study from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Taiwan’s National Health Research Institutes (NHRI). In addition, pretreatment with the supplement promotes the production of tumor-killing macrophages, making it a promising complement and supplement to existing chemotherapies.
Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) has received $112,500 in funding from A Glimmer of Hope Foundation (GOH) to further research of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and to enhance patient support services at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital.
Pancreatic cancer happens when cells that aren’t normal grow and start to form tumors in the pancreas, a small organ located deep in the belly, behind your stomach. The pancreas makes juices that help your body digest food. It also makes insulin and other hormones that help control your blood sugar.
According to the American Cancer Society, kidney cancer is among the top ten most common cancers in men and women, and clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) – the most common subtype of tumor associated with kidney cancer – accounts for more than 75 percent of cases.
With Alex Trebek’s recent announcement that his pancreatic cancer is in remission, many people have wondered if this difficult cancer is now easier to treat. Pancreatic cancer remains a major cancer killer, but advances are happening.
Pancreatic cancer is a grim diagnosis, with a five-year survival rate of less than 9 percent. To improve those odds, researchers at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sought genetic signatures in the largest study of its kind that could be used to better match drugs to patients and for early detection.
In animal models and patient tissues, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Satdarshan “Paul” Monga, MD, professor of pathology and the founding director of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center at Pitt’s School of Medicine, and Michael Oertel, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center —have identified a new molecular pathway in the liver that suggests a commonly used anti-rejection medication could be repurposed to treat certain liver cancers.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steffi Oesterreich, PhD, professor of pharmacology and chemical biology and co-director of the Women’s Cancer Research Center at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and Magee-Womens Research Institute, is one of four leading UPMC Hillman Cancer Center breast cancer researchers that are among the world’s top scientists to share in a record-breaking $63 million investment in cancer research by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).
Mary Kekatos Health Reporter for the Dailymail.com and the Dailymail.com Reporter, recently detailed in her article that statins could prevent the spread of breast cancer, per a new study. Researchers say the drugs, which combat high cholesterol, do not prevent the cancer from occurring but stop it from spreading to other organs. Experiments performed in human cells and laboratory mice found that the pills prevent tumors from migrating to the lungs and liver.
Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT), the nation’s only charitable organization dedicated exclusively to funding cancer cell and gene therapy research, announced the recipients of its 2018 research grants using innovative clinical approaches to find gene therapy treatments for solid cancers. One of the projects funded is a collaborative effort by McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Joseph Glorioso, MD, PhD, Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics in the School of Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Department of Human Genetics, of the University of Pittsburgh, and Gary Cohen, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, who are working together on a vaccine for melanoma.
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Shilpa Sant, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has received a 7-year R37 MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, for her project entitled, “Three-dimensional organoid models to study breast cancer progression.” This grant is funded by the NCI under the Cancer Tissue Engineering Collaborative (TEC) Research Program that aims to support the development and characterization of state-of-the-art biomimetic tissue-engineered technologies for cancer research. The total funding for the first 5 years is $2.7 million.
A new study from The Wistar Institute, in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh and others, revealed the mechanism implicated in the defective function of tumor-associated dendritic cells (DCs), a specialized type of immune cells that expose the antigens on their surface to activate the T cells. The new findings explain why DCs are not effective in executing a specialized process that is required for inducing antitumor immune responses and effective cancer immunotherapy. The work was published online in Nature Communications. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Valerian Kagan, PhD, Professor and Vice-Chairman in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Pitt, is a co-author on the paper.
The work of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Marina Kameneva, PhD, Research Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Professor of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, and Director of the Artificial Blood Program at the McGowan Institute, and colleagues recently appeared in the May 31, 2017, online issue of the publication, Oncotarget. Co-authors on the paper are Samer Tohme, Hamza O. Yazdani, Vikas Sud, Julie Goswami, Patricia Loughran, Hai Huang Richard L. Simmons, and Allan Tsung, all of the University of Pittsburgh.
University of Pittsburgh and UPMC researchers are paving the way for genome-targeted treatments in pancreatic cancer, an especially deadly form of cancer with few existing therapeutic options, according to a pair of recent studies.
A novel gene therapy using CRISPR genome editing technology effectively targets cancer-causing “fusion genes” and improves survival in mouse models of aggressive liver and prostate cancers, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report in a study published online recently in Nature Biotechnology. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members George Michalopoulos, MD, PhD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, and Satdarshan Monga, MD, Endowed Research Chair in Experimental Pathology and the Vice-Chair of the Division of Experimental Pathology, Department of Pathology at Pitt, are co-authors on the study.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI) have discovered molecular changes in the primary tumor of breast cancer patients who developed brain metastases. The finding is expected to lead to improved diagnosis and targeted therapies.
Research by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI)—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Simon Watkins, PhD, founder and director of the Center for Biologic Imaging at the University of Pittsburgh—has revealed how cancer cells hijack DNA repair pathways to prevent telomeres, the endcaps of chromosomes, from shortening, thus allowing the tumor to spread. The findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.
Combining ultrasound energy and microbubbles to poke holes in cells may prove to be a new tool in the fight against cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. A study on this gene therapy approach, called sonoporation, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty members Flordeliza Villanueva, MD, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and Vice Chair for Pre-Clinical Research of the Department of Medicine, and Simon Watkins, PhD, Founder and Director of the Center for Biologic Imaging at the University of Pittsburgh, member of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and also a Professor and Vice Chairman within the Department of Cell Biology, are co-authors on the study.
The microenvironment that supports a cancerous tumor also starves the immune cells that the body sends in to destroy the cancer, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists revealed in a discovery that holds the potential to significantly boost the performance of breakthrough immunotherapy drugs.
Not only is breast cancer more than one disease, but a single breast cancer tumor can vary within itself, a finding that University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) researchers—including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Steffi Oesterreich, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the UPCI—discovered has the potential to lead to very different patient treatment plans depending on the tumor sample and diagnostic testing used.
Osteosarcoma is a cancerous tumor in a bone. Specifically, it is an aggressive malignant neoplasm that arises from primitive transformed cells of mesenchymal origin (and thus a sarcoma) and that exhibits osteoblastic differentiation and produces malignant osteoid. Osteosarcoma is the most common histological form of primary bone cancer. It is most prevalent in children and young adults.
Statins Inhibit Spread of Some Cancers in Laboratory Tests
Cholesterol-lowering drugs appear to be a promising, cost-effective way to reduce the risk of metastases in some cancers, according to laboratory research led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, including McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Alan Wells, MD, DMS, the Thomas J. Gill III Professor of Pathology and the Vice-Chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh. Metastases, rather than the original tumor, are what usually kill people with cancer.
Pitt School of Dental Medicine Team Awarded $2 Million NCI Grant to Study How Cancer Spreads to Bone
With a $2 million, 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Hongjiao Ouyang, DDS, PhD, DMD, and researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine will examine the molecular mechanisms that allow certain cancers, particularly multiple myeloma, to spread to the bone. The project could lead to new interventions to prevent such metastases and perhaps slow down primary tumor growth.
Genetic Discovery Yields Prostate Cancer Test, Promise of Future Therapy
A genetic discovery out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is leading to a highly accurate test for aggressive prostate cancer and identifies new avenues for treatment. The analysis, published in the American Journal of Pathology, found that prostate cancer patients who carry certain genetic mutations have a 91 percent chance of their cancer recurring. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member George Michalopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, was a member of the study’s research team. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Cancer Society, and University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI).
