Sara Willa Ernst is a reporter with The Cancer Letter. She joined the publication in 2025.
Before joining The Cancer Letter, Sara reported on health in Texas both as a freelance journalist based in Austin and the health reporter at the NPR station in Houston, where she produced two investigative podcasts "Hot Stops" and "Below the Waterlines." The latter won her two regional Murrow awards in 2023.
Her bylines have appeared in publications such as NPR, The Texas Standard, WHYY's The Pulse, WBUR's Here and Now, Austin Free Press and the Austin Chronicle.
She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in Communications Studies in 2018.
Cancer Policy
To fight drug shortages that have dogged all of medicine—including oncology—for decades, the Trump administration is returning to a policy it first enacted during the president’s first term.
Cancer Policy
A federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s move to cut research funding to Harvard University was illegal—restoring more than $2 billion and all future grants to the institution.
Cancer Policy
FDA is shortening its timeline for publicizing Complete Response Letters, pledging to make them available to the public “promptly” after sponsors receive notice.
Podcast
Phil and Penny Knight made a record-setting $2 billion gift to OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
Free
Earlier this year, amid efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce, Lakshmi Grama decided to take early retirement from NCI.
Those anxiously anticipating the release of the U.S. News & World Report‘s evaluation of cancer hospitals will find one intriguing change.
