Cancer Immunotherapy

A research endeavor that seeks to develop a new cancer immunotherapy utilizing nanobody delivery and targeted heating of tumors has received funding from the Waddell Walker Hancock Cancer Discovery Fund. The project to create an immunotherapy that will benefit more patients is led by John Tanner Wilson, left, and… Read More

By Marissa Shapiro With a surprisingly simple approach in which cancer cells are first grown, ruptured and converted into nanoparticles, and then used as a vaccine, Vanderbilt researchers have developed what appears to be a promising treatment for breast cancer metastasis. Research led by Jenna Dombroski,… Read More

Finding gives boost to fighting through cell metabolism NASCAR has nothing on cancer cells when it comes to exploiting the power of drafting, letting someone else do the hard work of moving forward while you coast behind. Building on the relatively new discovery that metastatic cancer cells leave tumors and… Read More

New research builds on Nobel-winning immune checkpoint blockade work Immunotherapy’s promise in the fight against cancer drew international attention after two scientists won a Nobel Prize this year for unleashing the ability of the immune system to eliminate tumor cells. But their approach, which keeps cancer cells from shutting off… Read More

Immunotherapies that take off the “brakes” on the adaptive anti-tumor response have worked well in melanoma and lung cancer but less so in breast cancers. That could change. A Vanderbilt team led by John Wilson, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Rebecca Cook, associate professor of cell and… Read More

A Vanderbilt engineering researcher has shown that combining an enhanced vibrational spectroscopy technique with tagged gold nanostructures can detect important tumor immunomarkers – a significant step toward predicting which patients would benefit from immunotherapy. The study by Rizia Bardhan, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, involved breast tumors… Read More

A chemical and biomolecular engineering professor has received a prestigious Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Career Development Award to develop an innovative multi-modal imaging platform for melanoma diagnosis and treatment evaluation. Assistant Professor Rizia Bardhan will use novel immunoactive gold nanostructures (IGNs) in conjunction with PET scanning and Raman… Read More

A friend of Kyle Becker’s assembled a collage of screen shots from his Jeopardy! wins. What was a week’s worth of Jeopardy! episodes for the viewing public in fact took place over one, long, grueling day. Kyle Becker, a School of Engineering research assistant, won his first match, then the… Read More

A grant from cancer research nonprofit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is allowing a Vanderbilt chemical engineering doctoral student to advance his research on a potential vaccine against pediatric neuroblastoma. Kyle Garland is spending his summer on a project titled Immunotherapeutic Targeting of the STING Pathway to Combat Neuroblastoma. He’s working… Read More

John Wilson, assistant professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and of Biomedical Engineering, has received an Innovative Research Grant from Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). (photo by John Russell) An assistant professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and of Biomedical Engineering has received an Innovative Research Grant from… Read More