A novel program to bring liquid biopsies into clinical care for patients with advanced cancer has been launched in France. However, several barriers preventing a similar program in the United States and other countries remain.

The approval of revumenib, the first menin inhibitor for KMT2A -rearranged acute leukemia, introduces a promising new targeted therapy option, though its efficacy is limited. Ongoing research into additional menin inhibitors and combination therapies aims to enhance treatment outcomes across a variety of genetically defined patient subsets.

Normal breast tissue harbors rare populations of aneuploid cells, displaying genetic changes often associated with invasive breast cancer—a finding that challenges the reliability of genomic profiling for early detection and could guide the development of predictive cancer risk tests.

The recently launched UK-based MANIFEST collaboration of academic, industry, and National Health Service groups will attempt to understand why less than half of patients respond to immunotherapy, research that could allow clinicians to predict whether a patient is likely to benefit from an immune checkpoint inhibitor before beginning treatment.

The antibody fusion protein IBI363, which combines IL2 and an anti–PD-1 antibody, showed strong efficacy in immunotherapy-naive patients with advanced melanoma, including in immunologically “cold” subtypes typically unresponsive to immunotherapy.

A new targeted therapy aimed specifically at FGFR3, TYRA-300, is showing preliminary promise in patients with advanced FGFR3 -altered bladder cancer. Partial responses have been seen in an ongoing phase I trial, and the drug is much better tolerated than erdafitinib, a pan–FGFR inhibitor and an approved second-line therapeutic option.

The sequencing of EGFR 40 years ago and the discovery of EGFR mutations 20 years ago revolutionized lung cancer treatment by enabling the development of targeted therapies and significantly improving how patients fare.

New genetic variants associated with prostate cancer have been discovered in a large-scale genetic study of African men. The finding potentially opens the door to new risk stratification approaches for prostate cancer and highlights the importance of conducting genetic studies in diverse, understudied populations.

Cancer clinical trials sponsored by industry enrolled more than eight times as many patients as NIH-sponsored trials during 2018–2022. This could mean that cancer research advances may come to gradually align more closely with industry’s priorities.

Cancer research labs can lose irreplaceable samples, specimens, and data when natural disasters, such as hurricanes, hit research facilities. At Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL, careful planning, informed by earlier disasters, ensured that very little damage was sustained from Hurricane Milton.

Nearly a year after alarms about CAR T-cell therapies possibly causing secondary lymphomas, studies suggest that genetic predisposition—not vector integration—are likely the primary cause of these rare malignancies, questioning the need for strict FDA warnings.

Three scientists will share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for creating computational tools that transformed protein structure prediction and design, accelerating cancer research and drug discovery. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were awarded for AlphaFold 2’s precise protein predictions, while David Baker was recognized for the de novo design features of his Rosetta platform.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Hopfield, PhD, and Geoffrey Hinton, PhD, for their pioneering work in artificial neural networks, which laid the foundation for modern AI applications in cancer research. Their contributions have sparked a revolution in the field, with machine learning now driving advances in diagnostics, drug discovery, and precision oncology, profoundly reshaping cancer research and care.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology recognized the discovery of microRNAs, small noncoding RNAs vital to regulating tumor biology. While early enthusiasm for microRNA-based therapies has been tempered by setbacks in clinical trials, researchers remain hopeful about their future potential in medicine.

mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 were associated with higher PD-L1 expression in tumors and improved overall survival in patients with non–small cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma who also received immune checkpoint therapy. This could mean that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumors to immunotherapy and could provide survival benefits to patients with cancer.

Immigration systems play a key role in the ability of cancer institutes to attract talent from overseas. However, the current visa processes in the UK and the United States may be hampering global efforts to reduce the burden of cancer.

Ten-year follow up from the CheckMate 067 and KEYNOTE-006 trials confirm that patients with advanced melanoma can achieve durable responses from treatment with the PD1 inhibitors nivolumab and pembrolizumab and that a lack of disease progression at 3 years is strong indicator of long-term survival. Dual checkpoint inhibition offers the deepest response, but monotherapy may be appropriate when aiming to avoid side effects.

NVL-655, a fourth generation ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was effective and well tolerated in the ALKOVE-1 trial in patients with ALK -positive non–small cell lung cancer that had previously been treated with earlier-generation ALK inhibitors, including lorlatinib.

The monoclonal antibody ponsegromab, which inhibits the cytokine GDF-15, led to improvements in weight gain, appetite, and physical activity compared to placebo in patients with cancer cachexia across multiple cancer types and in all dose groups. The findings suggest that GDF-15 is heavily involved in cachexia, and that ponsegromab is a promising therapeutic avenue for treating it.

The development of second-generation covalent “off”-state KRAS G12C inhibitors is taking off. Two candidates, D3S-001 and divarasib, highlighted at the 2024 ESMO Congress, show better efficacy, with good tolerability, in non–small cell lung cancer as well as in colorectal cancer, against which the activity of first-generation inhibitors has been underwhelming.