The Cancer Letter

In an era of uncertainty around funding for academic research, Yolanda Sanchez and Kelvin Lee are thinking about how to build the next generation of scientists in spite of these challenges.  “Certainty is not there anymore. So, what do you do?” said Sanchez, director of the University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Because we’re not stopping. We’re not telling students that they can’t...

“About a year ago, in January, were these two massive fires in Los Angeles: the Palisades fire, and the Eaton Fire,” Sara Willa Ernst, reporter with The Cancer Letter , said on The Cancer Letter Podcast. On this week's episode, Sara and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor with The Cancer Letter , talk about their experience working as writer-and-editor duo on The Cancer Letter’s most recent cover...

Malcolm V. Brock, director of Clinical and Translational Research in Thoracic Surgery at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, grew up on the island of Bermuda. His father insisted that his children branch outside the island’s small footprint—the country has a population of just over 60,000 people—and challenge themselves abroad. “My father said to me, ‘Look, you're not going to do muc...

With NCI Director Anthony Letai in Milan supporting his daughter, Julie, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Douglas R. Lowy, principal deputy director of NCI, took on the job of delivering detailed remarks and fielding questions at the inaugural meeting of the NCAB’s ad hoc working group on Extramural Research Concepts and Programs. The meeting was the first time the field was able to publicly communica...

When The Cancer Letter founder Jerry Boyd carried the first print run of his little eight page oncology newsletter into an NCAB meeting in 1973, he certainly could not have predicted that, half a century later, his experiment would branch out into this thing called “podcasts.” On this week's episode, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter , and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate edito...

Growing up in inner-city Detroit, Otis Brawley had a thriving community made up of his parents, Jesuit priests, friends, and neighbors encouraging him that he could do anything he put his mind to.  Brawley’s parents worked at the local Veteran’s Hospital, his father in janitorial services and his mother in food services. Neither graduated from high school, but they had high aspirations for their s...

Last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter included an obituary that the entire staff at The Cancer Letter had been dreading for years: Abdallah Abou Zahr, an oncologist at Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo, ND, died Jan. 23 of a liposarcoma after a five-year battle with the disease.  Abou Zahr’s story had become personal for The Cancer Letter. In February 2024, an intimate story of how cancer hijack...

As NCI paylines drop to 4%, cancer centers are tapping into their institutional funds to provide “bridge funding,” typically in $50,000 to $100,000 increments, to enable investigators to keep their labs open until better times return—next year God willing.   “It’s sort of starvation wages in terms of the grant funding,” said Ramon E. Parsons, director of Tisch Cancer Institute & Mount Sinai Ca...

In last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter , Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, wrote a story about the then-promising legislative package that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 22. At the time, the package was expected to pass in the Senate, provide funding for the federal government through fiscal year 2026, and prevent a government shutdown that looms Jan. 30.  Then, on Jan. 24...

“It's really, really important that every year since 1991, cancer mortality has dropped by a little bit, and it did again!” said Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter . “Now, mortality is a good metric, age-adjusted mortality. As far as survival, well, that's not so good.” In last week’s cover story in The Cancer Letter , Paul and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The...

“I believe in the concept of a universal cancer vaccine,” said Elias Sayour, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Florida. “I think if this fails in a prospective phase III trial, I still believe we can engineer a vaccine that works prospectively.” The cover story of last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter was about the potential of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to improve response to checkpoint in...

On Dec. 19, the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act was blocked in the Senate by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) after receiving unanimous approval from the U.S. House of Representatives Dec. 1.  On this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Nancy Goodman, founder and executive director of Kids v. Cancer, joins Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor with The Cancer Letter , and Claire Marie Porter, reporte...

In a year that brought us new KRAS-inhibiting drugs, deepened our understanding of HER2 in breast cancer, and highlighted new potential for mRNA vaccines, the cancer field was also rocked by uncertainty of the future of research funding, equity in cancer delivery, and the integrity of review at FDA.  In a lively conversation with The Cancer Letter ’s Paul Goldberg, Brawley, who is the Bloomberg Di...

A year like 2025 has demanded a lot from all of us, between the Trump administration’s flooding of the zone, the impact of DOGE and MAHA initiatives on the National Cancer Program, and the personal toll of living amidst uncertainty. In many ways, 2025 was a test. Did the field of oncology pass? Did The Cancer Letter ?  Reflecting on a year of cancer news coverage and our readers’ most-read stories...

As trust in scientific and regulatory institutions frays and the meaning of “gold standard science” is increasingly contested, cancer research faces a credibility test of its own.  “Cancer research is apolitical,” Joann Sweasy, director of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, and president of the Association of American Cancer Institutes, said. “Everyone is impacted by cancer. I don't...

Last month, FDA withdrew a proposed rule for standardized asbestos testing in talc-based cosmetics. The proposed rule, introduced in Nov. 2024 and withdrawn Nov. 2025, was mandated by the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 or MoCRA. Following an open comment period, FDA decided to withdraw the rule—citing significant public opposition and unintended consequences. “When you read the...

Last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter featured great news and terrible news.  On the one hand, Anthony G. Letai, the new director of the National Cancer Institute who has been regarded as a great choice for the position by oncology leaders, has stepped into the public sphere and has been spreading a message of stability and continuity.  On the other hand, Richard Pazdur retired from his position...

Edward Chu, director of the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center, died on Nov. 13 from glioblastoma. He was 66. In the most recent issue of The Cancer Letter , Roy S. Herbst, deputy director at Yale Cancer Center, penned an obituary for Chu chronicling the career and impact of the “baritone of reason.”  In this week’s episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Herbst sat down with Paul Goldb...

Recently, a wave of new private insurance mandates have swept the nation making fertility preservation a covered benefit for people with cancer in 21 states plus Washington, DC.  Mia Sandino, an osteosarcoma survivor, chose not to undergo fertility preservation when she was diagnosed at 19. She didn’t know if she wanted kids, had no guarantee that her insurance would cover the extraordinary costs,...

Last week, Richard Pazdur was named to the position of director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Much has been written about how Pazdur, with nearly a three-decade long career at the agency, represents a stabilizing choice for FDA as it faces inner and outer turmoil. Indeed, on this week’s episode of In the Headlines, we bring you the full audio of a conversation originally publis...

Richard Pazdur, founding director of FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence and long-time FDA visionary, has accepted the top job at FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research following George F. Tidmarsh’s dramatic ouster from the position.   “This is big. Because, you know, the whole field of oncology over the past 25 years—and [Pazdur has] run the oncology division and decided which drugs would...

At a time when federal immigration policies are becoming stricter, Kunle Odunsi, director of University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, reflected on the fact that cancer research is a highly international community. “I was born in Nigeria, I grew up in Nigeria, I went to medical school in Nigeria, and then I did some of my training in England, in the United Kingdom,” Odunsi said....

One of the first things that happened as part of President Donald Trump’s “flooding of the zone” in January was the disappearance of the site visit as part of the Cancer Center Support Grant review. In last week’s cover story, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter , wrote about “the high level of consternation over the disappearance of the site visit from the CCSG review” and ho...

Early endpoints have the potential to get effective drugs to patients faster, but granting approval to drugs—even accelerated approval—comes with the risk that ineffective or even harmful drugs will be given to patients.  “If we don't have these intermediate endpoints to get new drugs to patients, we'd have to wait… I think somebody mentioned in one of the conversations I had while I was r...

“Our goal was very clear from the beginning, which was to develop a user-friendly simple chat-like interface that would provide specific high-quality answers to questions that our members would bring, utilizing only our content,” said Clifford A. Hudis, CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and executive vice chair of the Conquer Cancer Foundation. On this week’s episode of The Cancer L...