Damon Runyon Physician-Scientist Andrew L. Ji, MD, and colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a population of specialized cells living at the edges of a tumor that potentially guide the metastasis of skin cancer and help it evade the body’s immune system.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has presented the 2020 AACR-Joseph Burchenal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cancer Research to Damon Runyon alum Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD. This award recognizes Dr. Wolchok for his leadership in the groundbreaking clinical development of immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors for treating cancer.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust have named Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Breakthrough Scientist Shruti Naik, PhD, and Former Damon Runyon Fellow Jihye Yun, PhD, as part of the 2020 class of the Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research. 

Damon Runyon Alumnus Ardem Patapoutian, PhD, of Scripps Research, was awarded the 2020 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for his breakthrough discovery of sensory receptors that respond to pressure. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the brain and nervous system.

Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator Rushika M. Perera, PhD, at University of the California, San Francisco, and colleagues at NYU Grossman School of Medicine have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells can appropriate an internal waste removal process to dispose of tags (MHC-1) on their surfaces which trigger the immune system to destroy tumors.

Since COVID-19 cases escalated to pandemic levels worldwide, Damon Runyon scientists are contributing to the unprecedented global effort to stop the disease by investigating how this specific coronavirus enters human cells, developing more efficient testing and searching for a treatment. 

Seven Damon Runyon alumni were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (the science “Hall of Fame”), one of the highest honors that can be given to a U.S. scientist. This brings the total number of Damon Runyon scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences to 86.

Damon Runyon-Gordon Family Clinical Investigator Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD; Board Member Michael V. Seiden, MD, PhD; and colleagues published results of a new blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer, often before symptoms develop. This may give patients and doctors a huge advantage and opportunity to treat the disease before it reaches advanced stages.

Damon Runyon Board Member Elaine V. Fuchs, PhD, the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University, has received the 2020 Canada Gairdner Award in recognition of her pioneering work on tissue stem cells, the cells of our tissues that are responsible for repairing wounds. 

After decades of trying, scientists developed drugs that target one of the most elusive cancer-causing proteins, KRAS, which is activated in nearly a third of cancers, including difficult to treat lung and colorectal cancers. In 2016, Piro Lito, MD, PhD, (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator ‘17-’20) and his colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center showed that a compound could shut down the most common form of the KRAS mutation in lung cancer without harming healthy cells.