News Releases

The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania is establishing the Tara Miller Melanoma Center, which will focus on the accelerated development of novel therapies and improved clinical outcomes for patients with the deadliest form of skin cancer.

A new gift to support the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) established and endowed the Pearl Basser Professorship for BRCA-Related Research. Katherine L. Nathanson, MD, deputy director of the Abramson Cancer Center and director of genetics at the Basser Center, has been appointed the inaugural chair holder.

Switching pancreatic cancer patients to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib as maintenance therapy instead of continuing intensive chemotherapy either shrunk tumors or stopped them from growing in 17 of 19 patients in an interim analysis from a trial at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

An inhibitor drug that targets a specific mutation in relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) helps patients live almost twice as long as those who receive chemotherapy.

A new combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer caused tumors to shrink in the majority of evaluable patients – 20 out of 24 as of an interim analysis of the phase 1b trial data.

When patients do not keep up with screening, the risk of death is substantially higher, so Penn Medicine researchers, investigating a new way to boost screening among those who were overdue, found a high number of patients completed at-home screening tests when they were mailed directly to them, regardless of whether they were provided a financial incentive.

When cancer spreads to another organ, it most commonly moves to the liver, and now researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania say they know why.

Abramson Cancer Center study finds immune responses can peak in just one week

Immune cells called macrophages are supposed to serve and protect, but cancer has found ways to put them to sleep. Now researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania say they’ve identified how to fuel macrophages with the energy needed to attack and eat cancer cells.

The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania announced today that Richard S. Schiffrin, Esq., has been appointed chair of the Center Director’s Leadership Council (ACCDLC), replacing outgoing chair Richard W. Vague.