Cancer Center News Stories

Study shows promise for iNKT cell platform to treat cancer

Researchers from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Perelman School of Medicine have shown that invariant natural killer T cells from a healthy donor can persist in MHC-mismatched canines, demonstrating a reliable platform to inform human clinical trials.

Removing the barrier surrounding solid tumors clears path for T cells

Penn researchers uncover a new way to target solid tumors. Using CAR T cells to remove cancer-associated fibroblasts surrounding pancreatic tumors allows T cells to infiltrate and attack the tumor cells.

Penn Vet’s Dr. Nicola “Nicky” Mason Appears on 60 Minutes

The interview highlighted Dr. Mason’s role in leading clinical trials that evaluated a novel Listeria-based vaccine to treat pet dogs with osteosarcoma, a common canine bone cancer.

A FLASH of radiation may lead to new cancer care for people and pets alike

Led by the Perelman School of Medicine’s Keith Cengel and the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Brian Flesner, a new study is evaluating the safety and efficacy of treating oral cancer in dogs with a palliative radiation in just two clinic visits.

NIH-funded canine immunotherapy data center charts a path toward transformative therapies

With support recently for five more years, Nicola Mason of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Qi Long of the Perelman School of Medicine hope their work leads to new insights in cancer care for people as well as pets.

T cells that ‘nibble’ tumors unwittingly help cancer evade the immune response

Penn Vet have uncovered a detailed mechanism by which tumors can skirt both the immune system and cancer therapies that leverage its power.

Changing the identity of cancer cells to eliminate them

A team led by the School of Veterinary Medicine’s M. Andrés Blanco has uncovered a new target for treating certain blood cancers that works by removing an obstacle to their maturation.

A new role for a triple-negative breast cancer target

These changes require energy. In a study using a new, genetically altered mouse model, researchers led by Rumela Chakrabarti of Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine have uncovered a key protein involved in supplying the mammary gland with fuel during puberty. It’s a protein that her group had earlier shown to play a role in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of the disease

Penn Vet Opens the First Academic Extracellular Vesicle Core Facility in the United States, Supports Investigators in the Growing Field of Extracellular Research

[PHILADELPHIA, September 12, 2019] - A new core facility, the first on the east coast to exclusively focus on the isolation and characterization of extracellular vesicles, has opened at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet). The Extracellular Vesicle Core Facility at Penn Vet supports investigators with the necessary scientific and technical capabilities to define, standardize and monitor research in pathological and physiological conditions.

University of Pennsylvania Researcher Earns 100,000 Grant

The Leukemia Research Foundation is proud to announce a grant of $100,000 in blood cancer research funding to M. Andres Blanco, Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, for the research project titled Dual Targeting of LSD1 and KAT6A to Induce Therapeutic Differentiation in AML. The one-year grant is awarded through the Foundation’s Hollis Brownstein Research Grants Program for New Investigators.

Annual Boehringer Ingelheim Awards Showcase Emerging Veterinary Talent

A veterinary student conducting research into stem cell repair, another studying the use of CAR T cells against canine B cell lymphoma, and a student with an interest in equine neuromuscular disorders and protein aggregate diseases are being recognized for their efforts -- and the promise they hold -- by Boehringer Ingelheim’s Animal Health business.

Meaningful science, with students at the helm

Shoulder to shoulder at a lab bench in the basement of Penn’s Levin Building, Sonia Luthra, Johanna Fowler, and Tracy Tran compare small microscope slides they’re preparing.

Fowler, a rising junior at Haverford College, and Tran, a rising sophomore at Penn, observed Luthra’s technique, drawing a sample of canine blood carefully across the slide to make a thin smear. The high school senior at Friends Central School had a leg up on the undergrads: whereas their 10-week project was only just beginning, Luthra had already logged a month in the lab.

Better prognosticating for dogs with mammary tumors

Mammary tumors in dogs are the equivalent of breast cancers in people, and, as in the human disease, the canine tumors can manifest in a variety of ways. Some are diagnosed early, others late, and they can be either slow growing or aggressive.

Learn About Cutting-Edge Cancer Care for Cats and Dogs

The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) will present a free panel discussion for pet lovers on caring for companion animals diagnosed with cancer to be held at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center on Wednesday, March 20, 2019.

Hindering melanoma metastasis with an FDA-approved drug

For cancer to spread, it needs a hospitable environment in distant organs. This fertile “soil” can provide a home to circulating malignant cells. Recent research has shown that cancer cells from the primary tumor can help ready this soil by sending out small vesicles. These vesicles contain a cocktail of molecules that “educate” healthy cells to prepare the target tissues for cancer cells to seed and thrive. Blocking this process offers one strategy to stop metastasis, which is often responsible for cancer’s lethality.

New Penn Vet Lecture Series Brings Companion Animal Expertise to New Bolton Center Community

Starting this October, the expertise of Penn Vet’s Ryan Hospital comes to New Bolton Center in a new series that connects the surrounding pet-loving community with the latest breakthroughs and techniques for small and companion animals.

How working dogs are sniffing out cancer

At Penn, collaboration is as ingrained in the culture as innovation. And, it turns out, some teams end up having quite the crew. One specific group—working to detect early stage ovarian cancer—maintains experts spanning obstetrics and gynecology, chemistry, physics, and veterinary care. It also includes human’s best furry friends: dogs.

Therapeutic Targets for Aggressive Breast Cancers

New findings from Penn researchers have made inroads into a strategy to identify TNBC tumors at risk for metastasis, and eventually target these cancers with drugs. 

Penn Vet to Host Inaugural Cancer Center Symposium Featuring Research Professor Cheryl London

Over the past decade, new discoveries about cancer cell growth have enhanced our ability to prevent, diagnose, treat, and manage the disease. Recent breakthroughs, such as immunotherapy, have put scientists at the threshold of radically transforming care and potentially discovering a cure.

Targeting Enzyme in ‘Normal’ Cells May Impede Pancreatic Cancer’s Spread, Penn Vet Team Shows

Cancer of the pancreas is a deadly disease, with a median survival time of less than six months. Only one in 20 people with pancreatic cancer survives five years past the diagnosis. The reason is the cancer’s insidiousness; tumor cells hide deep inside the body, betraying no symptoms until late in the disease, when the cancer has almost invariably spread to other organs.

Penn Vet Study Shows How Solid Tumors Resist Immunotherapy

Immunotherapies have revolutionized cancer treatment, offering hope to those whose malignancies have stubbornly survived other existing treatments. Yet solid tumor cancers are often resistant to these approaches.

Epigenetic Change Ties Mitochondrial Dysfunction to Tumor Progression

In a new report published in the journal Cell Discovery, a team led by researchers in the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine has identified a mechanism by which mitochondria can drive changes in nuclear gene expression that are associated with tumor progression. The epigenetic process is carried out by a protein that is triggered in response to mitochondrial oxidative or metabolic stress. When this interaction was blocked by chemical compounds, the team was able to reduce cancer gene expression.

Mitochondrial Stress and Cancer-related Metabolic Shifts

Mitochondrial stress alone can trigger metabolic shifts through a pathway that involves p53, a protein widely known to play multiple important roles in cancer.

Cancer Care for Shelter Dogs

Petco and Blue Buffalo Foundations support Penn Vet cancer care and the critical role that universities and research centers play in understanding and eradicating pet cancer.

Disrupting Cells’ ‘Powerhouses’ Can Lead to Tumor Growth, Penn Study Finds

Cancer cells defy the rules by which normal cells abide. They can divide without cease, invade distant tissues and consume glucose at abnormal rates.

Glowing dye may aid in eliminating cancer

"Clean margins” are a goal of cancer excision surgery. If even a small piece of cancerous tissue is left behind, it increases the likelihood of a local recurrence and spread of the disease, possibly reducing overall survival time.

Blocking tumor signals can hinder cancer’s spread

For most people who die of cancer, the spread of the initial tumor is to blame. “Metastasis is what kills most cancer patients,” says Serge Fuchs, a professor in Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine. “Yet there are not many, if any, drugs that specifically target metastatic processes.”

Tailoring treatment for triple-negative breast cancer

Immunotherapies have revolutionized treatment for people with a variety of cancers. But when given to those with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of the disease, less than 20% respond.

Penn Vet’s Shelter Canine Mammary Tumor Program Sees 100th Dog

The Penn Vet Shelter Canine Mammary Tumor Program has reached a milestone. A Chihuahua named Brownie is the 100th dog to join the program, which was founded in July 2009 and provides care for shelter dogs while advancing knowledge of both canine and human breast cancer. Brownie came to the program from the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and is currently in foster care with a PAWS volunteer, while waiting for her forever home.

Joey the Senior Cat Triumphs Over Illness with Help from Friends

For most of his life, Joey was a happy, healthy cat—never sick and always in charge. With nary a sniffle, the scrappy domestic short hair has lived with his owner Amanda Arrowood since he was found as a kitten in West Philadelphia. But, at the age of 13, Joey started losing weight and suffering from chronic diarrhea.

Stem cell signaling drives mammary gland development and, possibly, breast cancer

The human body develops most tissue types during fetal development, in a mother’s uterus. Yet one only tissue develops after birth: the mammary gland. This milk-producing organ, a defining characteristic of mammals, is also the site of one of the most common cancers, breast cancer, which affects roughly one in eight women in the United States over the course of their lifetime.

Innovative vaccine offers canine cancer patients a shot at a longer, happier life

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone cancer to affect dogs. It is a painful and aggressive disease. Affecting more than 10,000 dogs annually, predominantly larger breeds, it kills more than 85 percent within two years. 

Immune cells involved in triple-negative breast cancer could offer future therapeutic target

 About 15 percent of breast cancers are classified as triple-negative, lacking receptors for estrogen, progesterone, and Her2. These cancers do not respond to targeted hormonal therapies, and they tend to be particularly aggressive, often resisting systemic chemotherapy and metastasizing to other tissues.

Cutting-edge science moves to the clinic to help ‘our furry friends’ fight cancer

Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine has long been a scientific and clinical powerhouse. But the launch of an initiative last year is further bolstering those strengths in the areas of cancer research and care.

Penn Vet’s Nicola Mason Receives NIH Research Award to Target Therapies for Autoimmune Disease in Dogs

Nicola J. Mason, BVetMed, PhD, associate professor of Medicine and Pathobiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Vet), and Aimee S. Payne, MD, PhD, the Albert M. Kligman Associate Professor of Dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, have received the prestigious NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award.

Recent grad Meghan Ramos helps people by training animals

“Go, Osa!” says Meghan Ramos, a recent graduate of Penn’s Veterinary Medicine program. Osa, a German shepherd, runs over to a wheel, carefully sniffing one of eight arms that extend from the scent wheel’s center. At the end of each arm is a blood serum that contains either malignant or benign ovarian cancer, a normal, cancer-free serum, or a distractor scent. Osa’s trained to detect blood serums that contain malignant ovarian cancer.