20131203_6

Conversation with The Cancer Letter: Max Wicha

After 27 years and six NCI cancer center support grants, Max Wicha announced he would step down as director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“Frankly, my research is really going well now,” Wicha said in a Q&A with The Cancer Letter. “It’s in a very exciting phase in researching cancer stem cells. My lab has grown—and my work is now moving into the clinic, so I’m actually working with our clinical people to do clinical trials targeting cancer stem cells.

“So the idea of five more years, or do I get to really focus on my research now? That was really the deciding factor.

“So it’s time. Again, six core grants is quite a number.”

BioMarin CEO Fires Off Feisty Emails In Battle Over Access to PARP Inhibitor

More than 230,000 people—including 82 Texas state lawmakers—petitioned BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. to provide its investigational drug to an Austin attorney afflicted with stage IIIC ovarian cancer.

In Brief

Lynne Penberthy named NCI DCCPS associate director for surveillance
Michele Bloch appointed chief of NCI Tobacco Control Research Branch
MD Anderson’s James Allison named 2013 Innovations Award winner in Bioscience by The Economist
European Commission approves Yervoy for first-line treatment of adult unresectable or metastatic melanoma
FDA approves generic Morphine Sulfate Injection

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Podcast

In The Headlines: Wafik El-Deiry on how “America First” means investing in NCI

Wafik El-Deiry, director of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University, joined The Cancer Letter’s weekly podcast to discuss his recent guest editorial—and confirmed his candidacy for director of the National Cancer Institute.

May 21, 2025

Vol.51 No.19

Podcast The Directors

The Directors: Tom Lynch and Skip Burris on how NIH funding cuts imperil biopharma innovation—and cost patient lives
In a time of uncertainty, “react to the knowns, not the fear”

Thomas J. Lynch Jr. and Howard A. “Skip” Burris III lead two institutions that couldn’t be more different—an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center on one side of the country and a for-profit research enterprise on the other—but they stay up at nights worrying about the same thing.

May 16, 2025

Vol.51 No.19

By Katie Goldberg

Capitol Hill

Grilled by Congress, Kennedy defends NIH and NCI budget cuts, freezes, and RIFs
To avoid “offending” pharma, NCI doesn’t study the causes of early-onset colon cancer, HHS secretary incorrectly alleges

In back-to-back congressional hearings earlier this week, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that the massive staff and budget cuts over which he has presided during his nearly four months on the job as well as even bigger cuts still looming on the horizon are a part of a single plan.

May 16, 2025

Vol.51 No.19

By Jacquelyn Cobb and Claire Marie Porter

Clinical

Kennedy’s claims notwithstanding, NCI clinical trials are delayed, enrollments reduced
NCI’s Steven A. Rosenberg: “Almost all patients are getting delayed by about a month, but then again, we’re turning away more patients.”

Natalie Phelps, a 43-year-old mother of two, has stage 4 colorectal cancer. She has become a central figure in the controversy over the dysfunction the Trump administration’s RIFs and budget cuts have brought to NIH.

An opportunity for Trump: Position U.S. cancer science to lead the world

Last November, the American public voted on America First causes, which include the greatest scientific discovery and achievement enterprise in the world: The National Institutes of Health. NIH has made America first in biomedical science for the past century.

First exhibit at Museum of Medicine and Biomedical Discovery to focus on the history of cancer research
From despair to discovery to triumph

For those who have spent their entire careers in oncology, cancer is our world. We see it as something to be studied, understood, controlled, cured, or prevented.

May 16, 2025

Vol.51 No.19

By Mace L. Rothenberg

20131203_6

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In The Headlines: Wafik El-Deiry on how “America First” means investing in NCI

The Directors: Tom Lynch and Skip Burris on how NIH funding cuts imperil biopharma innovation—and cost patient lives
In a time of uncertainty, “react to the knowns, not the fear”

Grilled by Congress, Kennedy defends NIH and NCI budget cuts, freezes, and RIFs
To avoid “offending” pharma, NCI doesn’t study the causes of early-onset colon cancer, HHS secretary incorrectly alleges

Kennedy’s claims notwithstanding, NCI clinical trials are delayed, enrollments reduced
NCI’s Steven A. Rosenberg: “Almost all patients are getting delayed by about a month, but then again, we’re turning away more patients.”

An opportunity for Trump: Position U.S. cancer science to lead the world

First exhibit at Museum of Medicine and Biomedical Discovery to focus on the history of cancer research
From despair to discovery to triumph

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20131203_6

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

In The Headlines: Wafik El-Deiry on how “America First” means investing in NCI

The Directors: Tom Lynch and Skip Burris on how NIH funding cuts imperil biopharma innovation—and cost patient livesIn a time of uncertainty, “react to the knowns, not the fear”

Grilled by Congress, Kennedy defends NIH and NCI budget cuts, freezes, and RIFsTo avoid “offending” pharma, NCI doesn’t study the causes of early-onset colon cancer, HHS secretary incorrectly alleges

Kennedy’s claims notwithstanding, NCI clinical trials are delayed, enrollments reducedNCI’s Steven A. Rosenberg: “Almost all patients are getting delayed by about a month, but then again, we’re turning away more patients.”

An opportunity for Trump: Position U.S. cancer science to lead the world

First exhibit at Museum of Medicine and Biomedical Discovery to focus on the history of cancer researchFrom despair to discovery to triumph

Never miss an issue!

Login

The Directors: Tom Lynch and Skip Burris on how NIH funding cuts imperil biopharma innovation—and cost patient lives
In a time of uncertainty, “react to the knowns, not the fear”

Grilled by Congress, Kennedy defends NIH and NCI budget cuts, freezes, and RIFs
To avoid “offending” pharma, NCI doesn’t study the causes of early-onset colon cancer, HHS secretary incorrectly alleges

Kennedy’s claims notwithstanding, NCI clinical trials are delayed, enrollments reduced
NCI’s Steven A. Rosenberg: “Almost all patients are getting delayed by about a month, but then again, we’re turning away more patients.”

First exhibit at Museum of Medicine and Biomedical Discovery to focus on the history of cancer research
From despair to discovery to triumph