In a panel discussion this week, four cancer centers directors described how their experiences as immigrants have shaped their approach to oncology and the U.S. healthcare system. 

Carol Fabian recalls the emotional hardship that came with treating women for breast cancer in the 1970s and eighties. 

A band of “Cancer Cowboys” once known as the ALGB—Acute Leukemia Group B—are, in large part, responsible for flipping the mortality rate of childhood leukemia from 90% to 10%, where it stands today.  

A panel convened by the Cancer History Project for Black History Month started with a discussion of mentorship, and concluded with a big underlying concept—justice.

As omicron infections and hospitalizations continue to peak in the U.S., a high-stakes battle over the national public health response is being fought in the rafters of political Washington.

The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship began in 1986 with 23 people at a hotel in Albuquerque and a $100 contribution from Patricia A. Ganz, who recalls thinking: “I don’t think I’ve ever invested in anything that was so good.”

When Susan Love joked that a group of breast cancer advocates in Salt Lake City should march topless to George H. W. Bush’s White House, she didn’t expect to be taken seriously.

Matthew Zachary, a 25-year cancer survivor and founder of Stupid Cancer, didn’t always know what it meant to be a cancer advocate, or the complex and rich history behind the term. 

Fran Visco never asked for $300 million in breast cancer research funding—she demanded it.

Directors of the first three NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers are learning from the past, starting with the National Cancer Act, and mapping an equitable future for oncology.

The FY22 budget proposed by the White House doesn’t include sufficient funds to sustainably support NCI researchers, even though the proposal includes the largest ever funding increase for NIH, the American Association for Cancer Research said in a letter to House appropriators.

From 2015 to 2018, the overall cancer death rate in the United States fell by 2.3% per year for men and 2.1% per year for women—an unprecedented drop, led by accelerated decline in deaths from lung cancer and melanoma.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors approved four new concepts, which includes Requests for Applications, Cooperative Agreements, and Program Announcements.

True, President Joe Biden is proposing the largest-ever funding increase for NIH, with a substantial percentage of funds going toward cancer.

It took Narjust Duma a long time to feel like she belonged in medicine in the U.S. Here is her story.

Daniel Hayes is racing to record the stories of oncology’s greats.

Inappropriate sexual relationships of the sort Axel Grothey engaged in at Mayo Clinic may be all too common.

The aftermath of sexual misconduct at premier medical institutions rarely leaves visible traces: HR is brought in, confidentiality invoked, deals made. The case of Axel Grothey’s exit from Mayo Clinic is a notable exception. 

In an expression of support for increasing funding for cancer research and prevention, the Bidens earlier this week endorsed the National Cancer Research Month.

NCI needs more funding to increase its low success rate of NCI-funded grant applications, David A. Tuveson said in testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations. 

Gynecologic oncologist Sarah Temkin has observed and experienced sexism in many venues: in hospital inpatient units, in the clinic infusion site, in the emergency room, but nothing is more blatant than sexism in the operating room.

In surveys, as many as 15% of Americans say that they will not get a COVID-19 vaccine under any circumstances, and another 17% are in the “wait-and-see” category, holding out to observe how others fare.If these numbers are correct, the U.S. has almost no wiggle room as it strives to reach herd immunity to COVID-19. 

We are shocked and horrified by the recent spate of violence and hate crimes against people of Asian and Pacific Islander  descent across the United States.In response to these events, The Cancer Letter is stepping up coverage of inequities and disparities—and we are seeking your help and guidance on an upcoming series of investigative stories.As a publication that actively advocates for racial justice and health equity, we condemn these attacks, which have led to deaths, severe injuries, and widespread fear in AAPI communities.

The likelihood that a patient walking through the doors of a radiation oncology clinic has advanced disease has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey from the American Society for Radiation Oncology found.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors approved 12 new and reissue concepts.

NCI has established a program at Frederick National Laboratory to manufacture CAR T-cell therapies for multicenter clinical trials.

Once an expensive cancer drug is discarded, it’s not worth it for drug developers, health care providers, and payers to recoup its cost, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in a congressionally mandated report.

In a matter of months, cancer researchers have gone from grappling with a surge of COVID-19 with limited clinical data to playing a critical role in the development of successful mRNA vaccines against the disease.

Faced with a pandemic that kills thousands of Americans each day, FDA leadership had to get therapeutics and vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 onto the market with unprecedented speed without sacrificing standards.

Pandemic notwithstanding, NCI is on track to reach the 15th percentile for the payline by 2025—a goal set by institute Director Ned Sharpless in response to a deluge of grant applications.

Overall cancer mortality rates in the United States continued to drop precipitously, falling by 2.4% from 2017-2018, according to the American Cancer Society's latest Cancer Statistics report.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors has approved 10 new and reissued concepts.

In a first procedural move of its kind, NCI asked its Board of Scientific Advisors to endorse the institute's continuing affiliation with the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center.

NCI has joined a nationwide initiative to increase the number of underrepresented minority faculty at NIH-funded cancer hospitals.

The United States faces the worst-yet surge of COVID-19, but cancer hospitals have learned to adapt to the pandemic, opting to continue cancer services at an unchanged pace.

After receiving a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis, author Ibram X. Kendi sought consultation at two hospitals located a mile apart.

In March, COVID-19 threatened to bring research at cancer centers to a halt.

NCI plans to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act of 1971 with an effort to build a coalition of support for cancer research, including raising the payline to 15% by 2025.

NCI has awarded 25 grants and contracts as part of the Serological Sciences Network initiative.

Women in oncology who face gender bias know what not to do: seek help from their institutions.

Leonidas C. Platanias spoke with Alexandria Carolan, a reporter with The Cancer Letter:

Pamela Kunz said she left Stanford School of Medicine because of years of gender-related microaggressions and verbal abuse she experienced there.

This story is part of The Cancer Letter's ongoing coverage of COVID-19's impact on oncology. A full list of our coverage is available here.This year's Cancer Progress Report from the American Association for Cancer Research provides a chilling overview of the impact COVID-19 has had on cancer.

NIH Director Francis S. Collins said he expects at least one of the vaccines against COVID-19 to be proven safe and effective by the end of 2020.

Earlier this summer, NCI Director Ned Sharpless faced a big challenge: produce a video for kids with cancer at Camp Fantastic.

Budget increases in 2020 enabled NCI to boost funding for research project grants, pushing the payline up by two percentage points from last year's level.

The Senate appropriations subcommittee July 27 proposed a fifth COVID-19 pandemic relief package that includes $15.5 billion in supplemental funds for NIH.

Adjusting to the pandemic, NCI has developed shortcuts in the conduct of clinical trials that could make it easier to conduct clinical trials, NCI Principal Deputy Director Douglas Lowy said at the virtual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on COVID-19 and Cancer.

If non-profit organizations are unable to make good on their commitments to trainees, NCI is prepared to fill that gap, NCI Director Ned Sharpless said during a July 22 virtual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on COVID-19 and Cancer.

In early March, when Giuseppe Curigliano, an oncologist in Milan, first spoke with The Cancer Letter about COVID-19, the situation in Italy was “like being in a war zone.”

A conference organized by the American Association for Cancer Research July 20-22 will bring together oncologists from academia, industry and government to identify ways for cancer researchers to inform studies of COVID-19.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors has approved nine new and reissue concepts—Request for Applications, Cooperative Agreement, Request for Proposals, and Program Announcements with special receipt, referral and review.

In March, as SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly across the United States, cancer researchers scrambled to find clues about the virus and ways to mitigate its damage.

The name of the session was a message in and of itself: “Racism and Racial Inequalities in Cancer Research.”

David C. Fajgenbaum knows all about facing the unknown.

A movement that began with a fatal chokehold on a Minneapolis street grew into demands for police reform, but outrage didn’t stop there. Amplifying, reverberating, it became a call for racial justice in medicine, in oncology.

It is not a matter of editorial opinion to say these words: Black Lives Matter.

Radiation visits—much like preventative screenings, surgery, chemotherapy and screening—were delayed or canceled at the peak of COVID-19 in the United States.

In Georgia, COVID-19 did something different.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors has approved 11 new and reissue concepts—Request for Applications, Cooperative Agreement, Request for Proposals, and Program Announcement with special receipt, referral and review.

Nobody knew how to even begin to predict the number of people who would register for the first-ever virtual annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Are COVID-19 patients with cancer at a greater risk of dying than non-cancer patients? Depends on whom you ask.

In the past, few patients had Oliver Sartor’s personal cell phone number.

At least for now, Feist-Weiller Cancer Center at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at Shreveport has repurposed the three vans that were used to provide cancer screening and essential health care to medically underserved communities.

The American Cancer Society earlier this week announced immediate furloughs and layoffs of its staff citing “a significant financial hardship” triggered by the novel coronavirus.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, oncologists are either limiting or canceling adjuvant care, in effect staging a population-level experiment.

In Italy, the number of people dying from COVID-19 has dropped to about 500 per day—a decrease from the 900 to 1,000 patients who had been dying daily when the disease spread was at its peak.

Social isolation and containment have begun to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases in Italy, Giuseppe Curigliano said to The Cancer Letter.

Week after week, Giuseppe Curigliano is waiting to see the first signs of a slowdown in Italy’s cases of COVID-19, and week after week, he is disappointed.

When The Cancer Letter spoke with Giuseppe Curigliano last week, he described the atmosphere in Italy as “spectral.”

The predicament in which Janice Cowden finds herself is so ordinary in today’s pandemic-struck America that it’s repeated thousands of times—and therein lies its horror.

The Cancer Letter spoke with leaders at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, and Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University to gauge the impact of coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic will affect every aspect of cancer care and cancer research.

To get a sense of how COVID-19 will affect oncology in the U.S., The Cancer Letter called Giuseppe Curigliano, associate professor of Medical Oncology at University of Milano and the head of the Division of Early Drug Development at European Institute of Oncology, Italy, who is based in the Lombardy region—the epicenter of the outbreak.

Forecasts of the inevitable spread of coronavirus can be difficult to ignore, especially at a time when many of us are making travel plans for this spring’s big cancer meetings.

Last year, FDA approved 11 new drugs and biologics as well as 30 supplemental indications and four biosimilars, according to commentary by FDA officials published in Nature Reviews.

A coalition of over 100 cancer groups is urging Congress to include the Clinical Treatment Act (HR-913) in an upcoming health care extenders package, scheduled to be considered this spring.

A program at Ohio State is trying to make use of cancer drugs that would otherwise go to waste.

The White House Feb. 10 released its FY21 budget proposal that, once again, includes drastic cuts to NIH and NCI.

A report by the Office of the Surgeon General finds that more than two-thirds of United States adult cigarette smokers report interest in quitting cigarette smoking; and the majority of adult cigarette smokers in the U.S. have tried to quit during the past year.

Stand Up To Cancer has launched two initiatives to increase minority representation in cancer clinical trials by amending its grant application requirements and funding a new research team focused on diversity and inclusion.

A study evaluating the real cost of smoking by state over a lifetime ranked each of the states, finding that over an average lifetime smokers spend about $1 million to $2 million on tobacco-related costs, depending on the state they live in.

The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors has approved seven new and reissue concepts—Requests for Applications, Requests for Proposals, and PARs.

FDA Jan. 2 issued a final guidance that will restrict the sale of e-cigarette flavors most popular with minors.

President Donald Trump signed $1.4 trillion in spending bills Dec. 20 that includes a $212.5 million increase for NCI to cope with an avalanche of grant applications and improve the institute's declining success rates.

A study that found gender bias in introductions of women speakers has awakened memories of decades of disrespect, women leaders in oncology said to The Cancer Letter.

A sense of foreboding descended on Narjust Duma as she sat at a presentation on drug-induced toxicities. The year was 2018, Duma was a 31-year-old second-year fellow at Mayo Clinic, and her discomfort stemmed from something other than the subject matter discussed.

The American Association for Cancer Research and Research!America are urging Congress to pass the FY20 appropriations bill by Dec. 20.

A Senate committee Dec. 3 cleared the path for Stephen M. Hahn to become the next FDA commissioner, though some Democratic and Republican senators voiced concerns that he wouldn't take aggressive action to ban flavored e-cigarettes in this role.

Questions on flavored vaping products dominated the Nov. 20 Senate confirmation hearing for Stephen M. Hahn, the administration's pick for the job of FDA commissioner.

William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza have a message for young scientists: do science for its own sake—and enjoy it.

Norman E. Sharpless has returned to his previous role of NCI director earlier this week after serving as acting FDA commissioner since April 5.

President Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate Stephen M. Hahn to the position of FDA commissioner Nov. 1.

E-cigarette smoke, like tobacco smoke, may, in fact, cause cancer, new studies suggest.

The the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by three researchers for work focused on how cells sense oxygen availability and adapt to it.

Global health organizations, federal health agencies, and cancer epidemiology experts say they aren't swayed by just-published recommendations on consumption of red and processed meat.

We asked six experts in disease prevention, nutrition, and guidelinemaking to discuss the just-published recommendations that disagree with the dietary guidelines promulgated by mainstream health organizations.

The senior author of the recent recommendation that disagrees with the dietary guidelines promulgated by mainstream health organizations said there is low-certainty evidence of increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and other harm from eating red meat and processed meat.

E-cigarette use is on the rise among young adults, but overall combustible cigarette use among teens is continuing on a downward trend, recent studies show.