Here’s the exciting research under way from Kelly’s Heroes-funded cancer researchers, as reported in Pillars of Progress, the 2017 Year in Review from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins:

• Lei Zhang, MD, PhD, collaborated with colleagues on a new treatment approach which aims to make currently incurable pancreatic cancer curable. About 40 percent of pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed when the cancer has begun to attach itself to tissue and vessels around the pancreas, often removing surgery as an option. Dr. Zheng’s research involved standard anticancer drugs to stabilize the cancer, followed by a pancreatic cancer vaccine and an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Patients also will receive radiation therapy. The investigators believe the combined therapy will kill cancer cells outright and also awaken the immune system to attack the cancer, making surgery possible, followed by chemotherapy and more immunotherapy.
• Dung Le, MD, led a clinical trial that resulted in FDA approval of the drug pembrolizumab. Dr. Le and investigators linked a DNA spell-check-like error, known as mismatch repair deficiency, to response to immunotherapy. The new drug is used to treat patients whose cancers contain this genetic repair defect.
• Bert Vogelstein, MD, is part of a team of researchers that invented a new type of cancer drug called MANAbodies. Although still experimental, this first-of-its kind immunotherapy targets the proteins from the abnormal gene mutations that drive cancer growth. It’s a mix of cancer immunology and cancer genetics in which the researchers take the cancer-specific genetic mistakes that “hide” within cancer cells and transform them into red flags that can be recognized by the MANAbodies.