Estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer is the most common form of breast cancer, affecting approximately 75% of breast cancer patients. In advanced and metastatic form, it is lethal, claiming the lives of nearly 350,000 individuals annually. Presently, no drug is able to eradicate these advanced tumors.

Most solid tumors become stiff as the cancer progresses. Although researchers recognize that the environment around the cancer cells influences their behavior, it is unclear how it does so. In a new paper, published in Scientific Data, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have collected gene expression data in response to mechanical stiffness in tumors. Their work can help guide our understanding of the crosstalk between cancer cells and their surroundings.

Hua Wang (RBTE), a professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and his research group are passionate about developing novel – but simple – solutions to not only improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies, but also to look ahead to clinical translation.

Researchers have demonstrated a novel two-step strategy to label and eradicate cancer stem-like cells (CSC) to improve cancer treatment prognosis.

CAR-T immune therapies could be effective against solid tumors if the right targets are identified, a new study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers suggests. The researchers successfully deployed CAR-T in a mouse model of ovarian cancer, a type of aggressive, solid-tumor cancer that has eluded such therapies until now. 

Scientists have identified a protein that plays a critical role in the action of several emerging cancer therapies. The researchers say the discovery will likely aid efforts to fine-tune the use of immunotherapies against several challenging cancers. They report their findings in the journal Cancer Research. 

The results of a recent canine cancer study by Tim Fan (ACPP/CGD), a professor of veterinary clinical medicine, and former Illinois faculty member Dane Wittrup may have positive implications for future approaches to cancer immunotherapy.

Researchers from Brian Cunningham’s lab, in collaboration with researchers at Washington University, have demonstrated a new capability to detect and count individual biomolecules at low concentrations.

An Illinois research team led by scientist Hua Wang (RBTE), a professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a biomaterial for T cell immunotherapy that can stimulate and expand function T cells in the body.