Salk has recruited Ian Guldner as a new assistant professor, bringing fresh momentum to foundational research on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Guldner’s lab will identify cellular communication mechanisms that regulate brain aging and disease, and target those interactions to preserve brain health. His recruitment was enabled by a gift from the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund and will create new opportunities for collaboration across Salk in neurodegeneration, immunobiology, and aging.

Preclinical studies at the Salk Institute laid the foundation for a question now being tested in patients: Can a vitamin D-based therapy “reprogram” a pancreatic tumor’s protective microenvironment, making tumors more vulnerable to therapeutic treatments? A clinical trial led by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute now demonstrates that a synthetic vitamin D analog can be administered safely in combination with standard-of-care chemotherapy and effectively reprogram the supporting pancreatic tumor microenvironment. This work also provides early evidence that vitamin D analogs can enhance chemotherapy response and improve survival, especially in patients with high tumor vitamin D receptor expression.