Houston Methodist researchers have been awarded a five-year, $3.28 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the brain controls bladder storage and emptying in people with underactive bladder, a condition that can make urination difficult or impossible and leave patients with few effective treatment options.   Dr. Rachel High, research director of the Center for Restorative Pelvic Medicine and professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Urology at Houston Methodist, is the...

Researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) are seeking older adults to participate in a new study exploring how companion robots can help people manage their health while continuing to live independently at home.   The study, “Health Management at Home with a Companion Robot,” is examining how adults age 65 and older use ElliQ, a social companion robot, in their everyday lives.   Already used by older adults in thousands of homes...

For patients with cancers harboring certain genetic defects, the first-in-class targeted therapy VVD-133214 (formerly known as RO7589831), which targets the DNA repair enzyme Werner helicase, demonstrated promising durable antitumor activity and was generally well-tolerated in a Phase 1 trial. The trial was led by Timothy Yap, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., professor of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics and vice president and head of clinical development in the Therapeutics Discovery division.   “VVD-133214 appears generally safe and shows promising antitumor efficacy,” Yap said. “These...

A multicenter clinical trial found that implanting collagen tiles during brain surgery to deliver targeted radiation therapy dramatically improved tumor control, lowered the risk of recurrence and improved overall survival compared to current standard of care for patients with newly diagnosed brain metastases in need of surgical resection. The ROADS trial, co-led by Jeffrey Weinberg, M.D., professor of Neurosurgery; and Thomas Beckham, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of CNS Radiation Oncology, is the first randomized controlled Phase 3 trial comparing GammaTile cesium-131...

Treating individual metastatic tumors with highly focused radiation or surgery did not improve progression-free or overall survival for patients with oligometastatic breast cancer receiving first-line systemic therapy, according to results from the randomized NRG-BR002 clinical trial led by Steven Chmura, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Breast Radiation Oncology. The findings provide important evidence against routinely adding metastasis-directed treatment for patients with a limited number of breast cancer metastases when effective systemic therapy is already controlling the disease. Oligometastatic cancer refers to...

Among cancer patients who received personalized support and navigation services from experts throughout the genetic testing process, their first-degree relatives – parents, siblings and children – were significantly more likely to receive genetic testing, as well. Nearly half of those relatives carried a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, which are associated with a higher risk of cancer. The findings revealed that with personalized support, genetic testing uptake for BRCA increased from 51% to 73% among at-risk family members in six months. This...

Researchers developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that helps explain how immune cells find their way to specific locations in the body and why they avoid others. The findings could help scientists better understand cancer, autoimmune diseases and treatment response. The study was co-led by Tao Wang, Ph.D., associate professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; and Linghua Wang, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Genomic Medicine, executive director and head of the Center for Cellular Language Intelligence, associate member of the James P....

Daraxonrasib, an oral RAS inhibitor therapy, achieved durable responses in pretreated patients with RAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer in a Phase 1/2 trial. The study was led by David Hong, M.D., deputy chair of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics. “Immunotherapy has improved outcomes for many patients with non-small cell lung cancer, but the majority of these cancers eventually progress,” Hong said. “At that point, the few treatment options available to these patients often have modest clinical benefit and substantial toxicities, so these...

In a breakthrough study, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered that psilocybin given before chemotherapy prevented the onset of nerve injury in preclinical models, even after repeated treatment cycles, which could help prevent pain, numbness and other common chemotherapy side effects. The study, co-led by Moran Amit, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Head and Neck Surgery, and Patrick Dougherty, Ph.D., professor of Pain Medicine, uncovers a previously unrecognized neuroprotective role of serotonin receptors and suggests psilocybin as a first-in-class...

A first-in-class therapy to target MYC, one of the most sought-after and difficult targets in cancer biology, showed promise in hard-to-treat blood cancers. Researchers led by Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph.D., professor, and Yuki Nishida, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor, both of Leukemia, found that experimental drug GT19630 interrupts a newly discovered cycle between MYC and GSPT1, resulting in strong anti-cancer activity in preclinical models of leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, including treatment-resistant and TP53-mutated disease. “For decades, scientists have struggled to develop therapies that...