Hypoxia — insufficient oxygen levels in tissues — initiates cancer cell invasion and metastasis through the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) protein. During this process, cancer cells undergo a conversion to amoeboid migration, although the underlying mechanisms are not clear. New research led by Veronika te Boekhorst, Ph.D., and Peter Friedl, M.D., Ph.D., identified calpain-2 as a key regulator of the amoeboid conversion in response to hypoxia. The researchers demonstrated that hypoxia and HIF stabilization stimulate calpain-2 to...

T cell responses against SARS-CoV-2 may provide durable protection against infections, and T cells targeting the virus may be useful for COVID-19 treatments. To best utilize T cells for prevention and treatment, it is critical to understand the viral targets, or peptides, that T cells recognize. To date, researchers have relied on in silico methods to predict immunogenic viral peptides, but little has been done to experimentally validate predicted targets. Researchers led by Ke Pan,...

In a new single-arm study, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers reported that radiation therapy as monotherapy is a safe and effective non-invasive treatment for oligometastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Led by Chad Tang, M.D., assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, the MD Anderson RCC Oligometastasis Phase II trial is the first study to investigate and report the use of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) as an alternative treatment to standard-of-care systemic therapy...

A study found that a healthy relationship curriculum can reduce physical dating violence among adolescents. The multi-year study, led by Jeff Temple, director of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Center for Violence Prevention, recruited 24 Texas middle schools for the randomized controlled trial in 2017. The study compared students who received the standard health curriculum versus students in schools that implemented the Fourth R healthy relationship curriculum. Findings demonstrated that the Fourth R, adapted for a 7th grade, ethnically diverse audience of...

A third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine significantly increased neutralizing antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to new research. Pfizer, BioNTech, and University of Texas Medical Branch scientists tracked the immune response of participants in clinical trials for the vaccine. They found that neutralizing antibody levels, the key protective immunity, dropped significantly over seven to nine months after the two-dose vaccination. This drop of neutralizing antibody levels correlates to the observation...

A new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center showed that stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) was as effective as surgery at providing long-term benefits to patients with operable early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and generated minimal side effects. The study is the first of its kind to compare long-term results of SABR against surgical treatment in patients with operable early-stage NSCLC. The findings from the single-arm, non-randomized STARS trial were developed and led...

Progress on treating Alzheimer’s disease has been frustratingly slow. A group of scientists in Houston suggests frustration at a very small scale may lead to a new path toward treatment. Researchers at the University of Houston (UH) and at Rice University, associated with the Rice-based Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP), found through experiments and computations that amyloid-beta peptides, small molecules that are abundant in the brain, go through several intermediate stages of frustration as...

When John Davis collapsed on the basketball court, he knew he could have prevented it. He could have avoided the heart attack, the trip to the ER, and the need for a stent to allow blood to once again flow freely from his heart to the rest of his body. Davis was healthy and, in his twenties when doctors diagnosed him with a genetic condition that required him to take medication to lower his cholesterol....

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a critical new factor in regulating phenylalanine metabolism and, therefore, in preventing the inherited metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU). The research also suggests a possible avenue for new treatments that may be effective for certain patients with PKU. The study demonstrates that the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) HULC directly regulates the metabolic enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). Loss of the lncRNA resulted in excess phenylalanine and symptoms consist with...