Researchers at Rice University have engineered living cells to use a 21st amino acid that illuminates protein changes in real time, providing a new method for observing changes within cells. The technique is effective in bacteria, human cells and live tumor models, making it possible to study complex diseases like cancer more ethically. The findings are pending publication in Nature Communications Oct. 23.

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has launched a new clinical trial to explore if using two targeted medications can help slow tumor growth in people with advanced adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), a rare and aggressive cancer of the adrenal glands. In the study (Alliance A092204), researchers will test whether combining two medications (cabozantinib and cemiplimab) can help slow the growth of ACC and improve outcomes for patients whose cancer has spread or returned after treatment.

With the help of a five-year, nearly $1.98 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) (R35) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Wayne State University aim to make strides in understanding how proteins move and interact in living cells through the development of next-generation computational modeling tools.

For decades, scientists have thought they understood the biochemical machinery that causes asthma—inflammation in the lungs that constricts airways and makes it hard to breathe. But researchers from Case Western Reserve University think "leukotrienes"—chemicals that get released from white blood cells when something irritates your lungs or you inhale an allergen—may not be the bad actors after all.

UofL has received $11.5 million in new funding from the NIH to support continuing research to develop therapies that activate the immune system against cancer and to train the next generation of cancer researchers and oncologists.