American Association for Cancer Research

2 weeks ago | aacr.org | Andrew Matthius

One of the resounding messages to emerge from the AACR Annual Meeting 2025, held April 25-30, was how cancer research is at a crossroads unlike anything researchers have seen before amid funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI).

3 weeks ago | aacr.org | Andrew Matthius

About 1 in 5 people currently develop cancer in their lifetime. By 2050, the global incidence of cancer is expected to increase from 20 million cases each year to over 35 million. These projections are one of the reasons Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD(h), FAACR, made global health a key initiative of her tenure as President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).  “Cancer is a global disease—it spares no continent, no country,” LoRusso, of Yale University, said during the meeting.

1 month ago | aacr.org | Andrew Matthius

How can we better map the evolution of cancer to help improve precision therapy? What role does age play in the development of cancer? What can be learned from tissues that rarely get cancer? What understudied targets are worth studying? These are among the questions that fascinate the early-career researchers selected as the 2025 NextGen Stars by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

1 month ago | aacr.org | Andrew Matthius

Originally founded in 1887, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has not only become a key component of medical research in the United States, but one of the foremost research centers in the world. Between 2010 and 2019, 354 out of the 356 therapeutics approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) involved research that was at least in part funded by the NIH.

2 months ago | aacr.org | Thomas Celona

After Craig Schumpert learned he had lung cancer that had spread to his brain, bones, and lymph nodes, he started radiation therapy. His oncologist told him he might be eligible for targeted therapy, but he would have to wait four to six weeks for results from tumor tissue testing. The possibility of targeted therapy sounded promising, but the wait did not. “When you get diagnosed with cancer, it’s like, get me on some kind of treatment,” Schumpert says.