Showcasing stellar scientists-in-training: The Rising Stars Symposium at Sanford Burnham Prebys

The annual event brought 12 doctoral-degree candidates and postdoctoral fellows to the Institute to help nurture diversity in research and feature Rising Stars poised to move science forward.

“It made me proud to work here and see the tremendous partnerships in action that make this symposium possible,” says Lauren Mitchell, M.S., program manager for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) at Sanford Burnham Prebys. “I think we were successful in shaking up the standard recruiting process and opening the eyes of both the Stars and attendees to new potential opportunities.”

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Overlooked lipid connected to ancient cellular pathway with links to cancer

Brooke Emerling Ph.D., is contributing to a revival of interest in an underappreciated set of enzymes.

Emerling and team have shown for the first time that PI5P4K—an enzyme that regulates cell membrane lipids—is connected to the regulation of an ancient signaling system called the hippo pathway, which is found in a wide variety of organisms and is known to help human organs grow and control their size.

The study, published in Science Signaling, opens new research avenues to tackle aggressive cancers.

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PancWest Symposium celebrates 10th anniversary

More than 120 scientists came to Sanford Burnham Prebys to discuss the latest advances in pancreatic cancer research.

The 2024 event was was hosted by Cosimo Commisso, Ph.D., and Pamela Itkin-Ansari, Ph.D.

“While pancreatic cancer accounts for only 3 percent of cancer cases, it has the highest mortality rate among major cancers and is the third-leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S.,” says Commisso.

“Unless we find ways to better diagnose and treat this disease, it is projected to become the second most deadly cancer in less than 20 years,” adds Itkin-Ansari. “That is why events such as PancWest are so important to enhance innovation and foster collaboration.”

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Perkins Fellow trains immune system against melanoma

Sreeja Roy, Ph.D., received a prestigious fellowship designed to support postdoctoral researchers in the lab of Carl Ware, Ph.D.

“The Jean Perkins Foundation Fellowship has been fantastic,” says Roy. “I can work without the pressure of writing an academic grant, which allows me to focus on the science and be more productive.”

Roy’s project at the Ware lab involves making immunotherapies more effective in treating melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

“We’ve made quite a bit of progress,” says Roy. “I look forward to sharing our results and seeing how this project advances from the bench to the bedside.”

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NIH director highlights Sanford Burnham Prebys and National Cancer Institute project to improve precision oncology

Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), highlighted a collaboration between scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on the NIH Director’s blog.

The spotlighted Nature Cancer study demonstrates the potential to better predict how patients will respond to cancer drugs by using a new AI tool to analyze the sequences of the RNA within each cell of a tumor sample.

Bertagnoli’s thoughts on this collaboration between scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and the NCI are available on the NIH Director’s blog. 

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The Cancer Letter covers collaboration between Sanford Burnham Prebys and the National Cancer Institute to precisely prescribe cancer drugs

The Cancer Letter—a news organization and weekly publication based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on cancer research and clinical care—included an article in its May 10 issue about a partnership between scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The “Trials & Tribulations” feature describes a first-of-its-kind computational tool to systematically predict patient response to cancer drugs at single-cell resolution. The study regarding this new tool was published on April 18, 2024, in the journal Nature Cancer.

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A confocal micrograph of a “brainbow” in the brain stem of a mouse. Brainbows are the result of an imaging technique in which neurons can be distinguished from each other using multiple fluorescent proteins.

Image courtesy of Jeff Lichtman, Harvard University.

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