$10M gift to support research at renamed Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center of The Wistar Institute

Wistar receives $600,000 grant to expand apprenticeship programs

The Wistar Institute’s Hubert J.P. Schoemaker Education and Training Center is expanding its apprenticeship programs and bolstering job opportunities in the life science sector based on a recent $600,000 PASmart Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.

February 07, 2025

Vol.51 No.05

Clinical Roundup

Urine test for prostate cancer could be used at home, study finds

Researchers at Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan have shown that an at-home urine test for prostate cancer screening is highly accurate.

February 07, 2025

Vol.51 No.05

In Brief

Wistar’s Nan Zhang and Noam Auslander receive $1.2M in biomedical research grants from V Foundation

Nan ZhangNoam AuslanderNan Zhang and Noam Auslander, the Wistar Institute assistant professors, have both received independent funding totaling $1.2 million over the next three years for cancer research projects from the V Foundation for Cancer Research. The grants are awarded to cancer researchers deemed “V Scholars” and allow Zhang and Auslander to pursue separate projects aimed at new strategies to improve the effectiveness of certain cancer therapies.

December 13, 2024

Vol.50 No.46

Clinical Roundup

Wistar Institute researchers identify the role of a Parkinson’s disease-related protein in cancer and T-cell activation

The Wistar Institute’s president and CEO, Dario C. Altieri, and his team have demonstrated the role of Parkin—a protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease—in the body’s innate immune response to cancer. Parkin is not expressed in several cancers. Altieri and his team engineered cancer cells to re-express Parkin and found that Parkin contributes to the production of interferons, which activate and attract T cells to fight the tumor. The lab’s findings were published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

September 20, 2024

Vol.50 No.35

Tumors are able to form with no DNA mutations, fly study shows

Tumors are able to form without any DNA mutations, according to a recent proof-of-principle study performed in flies. Epigenetic changes alone—even temporary alterations—induced permanent cancer cell fate.

Wistar, Accelerated Biosciences collaborate to develop immune cell therapies

The Wistar Institute is collaborating with Accelerated Biosciences Corp. to create a platform based on human trophoblast stem cells to explore new immunotherapies that use Accelerated Bio’s proprietary technology. This collaboration could generate various types of immune cells from hTSCs, changing the field of allogeneic immunotherapies.

July 12, 2024

Vol.50 No.28