A Message From Director Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD
We begin 2022 with a look at The Tisch Cancer Institute’s (TCI) latest discoveries. In this report we highlight the work of our dedicated investigators who explore the complexity of cancer formation and metastasis and search for effective ways to stop it. These advances will help provide our patients with better health and longevity.
At Mount Sinai’s Vaccine and Cell Therapy Laboratory, we have created unique, individualized vaccines and shown their safety and promise. In another laboratory, investigator Jian Jin, PhD, and I have engineered a small molecule, MS21, which effectively targets the PTEN/AKT pathway, one of the most commonly mutated pathways in human cancer. Biopharmaceutical companies have been working to develop a drug that accomplishes this for two decades, but with limited success. We believe MS21 holds promise.
Also in this report, we share Mount Sinai’s latest findings on macrophages and their potential role in curtailing tumor invasiveness and growth. And we show how many of our National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded researchers are making strides in overcoming refractory acute myeloid leukemia, bladder cancer, mantle cell lymphoma, and hepatocellular carcinoma.