In March of 2011, when she was 14 years old, Lily Newton was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the bone and soft tissue called Ewing sarcoma. Cancer changed Newton’s life in more ways than she could have imagined.
Dale Ramsden, PhD, and his colleagues published a major study in the journal Science revealing surprising findings about the way major breaks in our DNA are repaired.
A study by researchers from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Network, and led by UNC Lineberger’s Katherine Hoadley, PhD, supports an additional classification for human tumors.
UNC Lineberger researchers led two major projects to mark the finale of The Cancer Genome Atlas project, which was backed by the National Cancer Institute and National Human Genome Research Institute.
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers helped lead an effort by The Cancer Genome Atlas Network of researchers to map the genetic drivers of invasive lobular carcinoma, the second most commonly diagnosed invasive form of breast cancer. They found that this cancer type may be at least three different diseases that differ in their microenvironmental features and outcomes.
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers and eight other leading cancer research institutions have won a five-year, $12 million grant to try to find treatments for a group of cancers linked to mutations in the NF1 gene.
Researchers from Norway visited UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to learn firsthand about UNCseq, a clinical trial launched in 2011 at the N.C. Cancer Hospital. In the trial, researchers use a profile of the genetic and molecular alterations in patients’ tumors to try to identify targeted treatments for them.
A UNC Lineberger-led study, published today in Nature Genetics, paves the way for potential personalized medicine approaches for the deadly cancer type.
UNC Lineberger will be enrolling patients into a new, national clinical trial, known as NCI-MATCH, that will group patients based on the genetics of their tumors as opposed to where their cancer is located. The new initiative will test more than 20 drugs or drug combinations targeting specific genetic mutations.
UNC Lineberger researchers are collaborating through the ClinGen consortium – a program launched to evaluate the clinical relevance of genetic variants – to help physicians make predictions about an individual’s risk of disease, develop more accurate clinical trials and design individualized treatments and care for patients.