Cancer

Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years.

Pierre Massion, MD, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Medicine, an internationally known expert on early detection and prevention strategies for lung cancer, died April 4 of an apparent heart attack. He was 58.

Triple-negative breast cancer cells engage in a “glutamine steal” — outcompeting T cells for the nutrient glutamine and impairing their ability to kill tumor cells, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.

A radiation therapy device for the treatment of a rare cancer has been designed, custom built and installed at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center at Maury Regional Spring Hill, offering patients from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and southern Tennessee more convenient care.

Chronic side effects among melanoma survivors after treatment with anti-PD-1 immunotherapies are more common than previously recognized, according to a study published March 25 in JAMA Oncology.

Distinct cancer-associated fibroblasts in the prostate tumor microenvironment may influence tumor progression and could point to new therapeutic targets.

Cancer chemotherapy lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurocognitive disorders that disproportionately affect older people.