David A. Barbie, MD, on Mesothelioma: Activating the STING Pathway May Promote Antitumor Immunity
AACR Annual Meeting 2022
David A. Barbie, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses his laboratory’s studies, showing that malignant pleural mesothelioma, an inflamed cancer type with marginal response to immune checkpoint blockade, demonstrated high tumor cell STING expression and response to STING agonists in combination with natural killer cell therapies ex vivo. STING is the tumor cell stimulator of interferon genes (Abstract 4168).
The ASCO Post Staff
Josh Neman, PhD, of the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, discusses the distribution of brain metastasis to preferential brain regions that vary according to cancer subtype, how neurotransmitters respond, and the ways in which the central nervous system acclimates (Abstract SY32).
The ASCO Post Staff
Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses how research is building on the success of first-generation PARP inhibitors in the clinic and the potential of novel potent PARP1-selective inhibitors, which may lead to improved patient outcomes. Given recent advances in drug discovery, says Dr. Yap, we now can go beyond PARP by drugging other key DNA damage response targets in the clinic, including ATR, WEE1, DNA-PK, RAD51, POLQ, and USP1.
The ASCO Post Staff
Gautam Mehta, MD, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, discusses how accelerated approval of potentially life-saving cancer therapies has been applied in precision oncology. Although “fast-tracking” drugs presents opportunities and challenges, one possible measure of the program’s success is the fact that, to date, no solid tumor accelerated-approval indications have been withdrawn (Abstract DC06).
The ASCO Post Staff
Meenakshi Anurag, PhD, of Baylor College of Medicine, discusses results from the ALTERNATE trial, which showed the combination of anastrozole plus fulvestrant was superior to either drug alone in inhibiting tumor proliferation in postmenopausal women with early-stage luminal B breast cancer (Abstract CT026).
The ASCO Post Staff
Matthew L. Meyerson, MD, PhD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses study findings that suggest the variation in frequency of EGFR and KRAS mutations in lung cancer may be associated with genetic ancestry in patients from Latin America. The results indicate it may be possible to identify germline alleles underpinning this link. Finding a germline locus or loci may impact the development of lung cancers with these mutations and may improve lung cancer prevention and screening for populations of Latin American origin, as well as others.
