Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

IMMUNE DESIGN PARTNERS WITH LEADING CANCER ORGANIZATIONS TO ADVANCE NOVEL IMMUNOTHERAPY RESEARCH

The Cancer Research Institute, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Immune Design Form New Collaboration to Accelerate Clinical Testing of Immunotherapies for Cancer

June 12, 2013, New York, NY, and Seattle, WA - The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Immune Design, a biotech company focused on immune-based therapies for cancer and other human diseases, today announced that they have signed a collaboration agreement to advance cancer immunotherapy research. Specifically, the partnership will focus on clinical trials to test novel combinations of immunotherapies, including two investigational drugs from Immune Design’s pipeline.

 

A ONE-TWO PUNCH AGAINST CANCER

Concurrent treatment with two antibodies that boost the immune response to tumors in distinct ways appears to be highly effective against metastatic melanoma

June 2, 2013, New York, NY – A team of researchers led by Jedd Wolchok of the Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) presented data today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology showing promising results from a Phase I clinical trial evaluating the concurrent use of two immunotherapies for the treatment of advanced melanoma. The study is published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Wolchok and his colleagues found that a regimen of two antibody therapies—ipilimumab (Yervoy) and the investigational drug nivolumab—led to strong and durable tumor regression in patients with inoperable, metastatic melanoma, which is highly resistant to treatment.

 

ANTI-CD47 ANTIBODY MAY OFFER NEW ROUTE TO A SUCCESSFUL CANCER VACCINATION

May 20, 2013, Palo Alto, Calif. - Scientists at the Ludwig Center for Stem Cell Research and the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University have shown that their previously identified therapeutic approach to fight cancer via immune cells called macrophages also prompts the disease-fighting killer T cells to attack the cancer.

 

ENGINEERED MOLECULES BOOST IMMUNE ATTACK ON CANCER

May 30, 2013, Palo Alto, Calif. - Building on previous research showing that cancer cells send signals to the immune system to avoid being attacked, Stanford University scientists, including several based at the Ludwig Center for Stem Cell Research at the university, have engineered new molecules that are highly proficient at neutralizing those signals. The molecules dramatically increase the effectiveness of certain existing cancer therapies and may open up other avenues for treating cancer using patients’ own immune systems.

 

ONCOGENE MUTATION HIJACKS SPLICING PROCESS TO PROMOTE GROWTH AND SURVIVAL

May 31, 2013, San Diego, Calif. - An international team of researchers – led by principal investigator Paul S. Mischel, MD, a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine – has found that a singular gene mutation helps brain cancer cells to not just survive, but grow tumors rapidly by altering the splicing of genes that control cellular metabolism.

 

PROFESSOR SIR DAVID LANE NAMED SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR OF THE LUDWIG INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH

May 30, 2013, New York, NY - Professor Sir David Lane, an internationally recognized and respected cancer researcher widely known for his discovery of the p53 tumor suppressor protein, joins the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as its Scientific Director, commencing June 1, 2013. In this role, Professor Lane will lead Ludwig’s global cancer research effort, fostering collaboration, coordinating research activities and representing its international network of leading scientists.

 

MAPPING THE EMBRYONIC EPIGENOME

Researchers elucidate how precise chemical modifications across the genome turn genes on and off during early human development—and how those mechanisms are disrupted in cancer

May 9, 2013, New York, NY and San Diego, CA - A large, multi-institutional research team involved in the NIH Epigenome Roadmap Project has published a sweeping analysis in the current issue of the journal Cell of how genes are turned on and off to direct early human development. Led by Bing Ren of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Joseph Ecker of The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and James Thomson of the Morgridge Institute for Research, the scientists also describe novel genetic phenomena likely to play a pivotal role not only in the genesis of the embryo, but that of cancer as well. Their publicly available data, the result of more than four years of experimentation and analysis, will contribute significantly to virtually every subfield of the biomedical sciences.

 

REVIVING A FOE OF CANCER

New research reveals how the tumor suppressor p53 is shut down in metastatic melanoma - and how it can be revived

April 25, 2013, New York, NY and Oxford, UK - Cancer cells are a problem for the body because they multiply recklessly, refuse to die and blithely metastasize to set up shop in places where they don’t belong. One protein that keeps healthy cells from behaving this way is a tumor suppressor named p53. This protein stops potentially precancerous cells from dividing and induces suicide in those that are damaged beyond repair. Not surprisingly, p53’s critical function is disrupted in most cancers.

 

A CHECK ON TENSION - LUDWIG DISCOVERY UPENDS MODEL FOR CELL DIVISION

April 21, 2013, New York, NY and San Diego Calif. – Ludwig researchers Arshad Desai and Christopher Campbell, a post-doctoral fellow in his laboratory, were conducting an experiment to parse the molecular details of cell division about three years ago, when they engineered a mutant yeast cell as a control that, in theory, had no chance of surviving. Apparently unaware of this, the mutant thrived.

 

LUDWIG UPPSALA DIRECTOR CARL-HENRIK HELDIN NEW CHAIRMAN OF THE NOBEL FOUNDATION

April 11, 2013, Stockholm, Sweden - At their regular meeting on April 26, 2013, the Trustees of the Nobel Foundation will elect Carl-Henrik Heldin of Uppsala as a new member of the Nobel Foundation’s Board of Directors. Heldin was born in 1952 and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, professor of molecular cell biology at Uppsala University, branch director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala and Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC).

 

LUDWIG PRESENTS ADVANCEMENTS IN IMMUNOTHERAPY AND EPIGENETICS AT AACR MEETING

April 10, 2013, New York, NY – A dozen Ludwig scientists from around the world presented the latest advancements in basic and clinical cancer research at this week’s American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2013. Progress in immunotherapy and epigenetics led the program with important diagnostic and treatment implications for emerging cancer therapy.

 

SCREENING BLOOD SAMPLES MORE COMPREHENSIVE THAN TRADITIONAL TUMOR BIOPSY

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Researchers using a tool called BEAMing technology, which can detect cancer-driving gene mutations in patients’ blood samples, were able to identify oncogenic mutations associated with distinct responses to therapies used to treat patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), according to a researcher who presented the data at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, held in Washington D.C., April 6-10.

 

A HIJACKING OF HEALTHY CELLULAR CIRCUITS

April 8, 2013, New York, NY and San Diego Calif. - Proteins that control cell growth are often mutated in cancer, and their aberrant signaling drives the wild proliferation of cells that gives rise to tumors. One such protein, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), fuels a wide variety of cancers - including a highly malignant brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Yet drugs devised to block its signaling tend to work only for a short while, until the cancer cells adapt to evade the therapy. So far, much of the research examining such drug resistance has focused on how mutations of other proteins in cancer cells allow them to resist drugs.

 

LUDWIG CANCER RESEARCHERS HONORED AMONG FIRST CLASS OF FELLOWS IN AACR ACADEMY

March 26, 2013, New York, NY - Three Ludwig scientists were named as Fellows in the inaugural class of the AACR Academy, the most prestigious honor bestowed by the American Association for Cancer Research.