Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Carlos Arteaga, M.D., associate director for Clinical Research and director of the Breast Cancer Program at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), has been named to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Komen is the one of the largest nonprofit organizations dedicated to funding breast cancer research [...]

Mohamed Hassanein, Ph.D., research instructor in Pulmonary Medicine, has received a Career Development Award from the LUNGevity Foundation to work on the development of noninvasive tests to help diagnose lung cancer. He will receive $300,000 over three years in support of his research efforts. Hassanein, who specializes in molecular biology and genetics, works in the [...]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have identified how one of the genes most commonly mutated in lung cancer may promote such tumors. The investigators found that the protein encoded by this gene, called EPHA3, normally inhibits tumor formation, and that loss or mutation of the gene – as often happens in lung cancer – diminishes this [...]

Nearly 15,000 people in the United States die each year from metastatic bladder cancer. Signaling pathways that cause bladder tumor recurrence and spread are not clear. David DeGraff, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in Urologic Surgery, and a multi-disciplinary team of colleagues including basic scientists, clinical pathologists and urologic surgeons, examined the role of the transcription [...]

Prostate cancer cells metastasize mainly to bone, yet bone metastases are resistant to common therapies and are often fatal. A key receptor for the growth factor TGF-β (TβRII) is lost in the connective tissue (stroma) of most prostate cancers, but the effects of this loss on metastasis and bone lesion development are undefined. Recently in [...]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has initiated tumor mutation testing for a limited number of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. This pilot project for colorectal cancer is part of VICC’s Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative (PCMI), a program to identify genetic mutations in a patient’s tumor that may be useful in matching the appropriate therapy with each patient. [...]

Stress can promote breast cancer cell colonization of bone, Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology investigators have discovered. The studies, reported July 17 in PLoS Biology, demonstrate in mice that activation of the sympathetic nervous system – the “fight-or-flight” response to stress – primes the bone environment for breast cancer cell metastasis. The researchers were able [...]

High consumption of vitamin E either from diet or vitamin supplements may lower the risk of liver cancer, according to a study published July 17 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study was conducted by investigators from the Shanghai Cancer Institute, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute. Vitamin E is [...]

An uncommon mutation of the BRAF gene in melanoma patients has been found to respond to MEK inhibitor drugs, providing a rationale for routine screening and therapy in melanoma patients who harbor the BRAF L597 mutation. The new study by co-first-authors Kimberly Brown Dahlman, Ph.D., Junfeng Xia, Ph.D., and Katherine Hutchinson, B.S., Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center [...]

An experimental drug that activates T-cells and promotes an immune response to fight tumors has shown promising early results in patients with kidney cancer, melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators Leora Horn, M.D., Jeffrey Sosman, M.D., and researchers from several other cancer centers tested the new compound. The results of the [...]