The Cancer Letter

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, this week’s episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast features three oncology leaders whose research focuses on identifying and solving health disparities specifically in the Latinx community.  Ruben A. Mesa, Amelie Ramirez, and Luis Carvajal Carmona spoke about the concrete impact of federal policy stances on cancer outcomes in Latinx patients. Mesa, who is preside...

With major leadership changes, grant disruptions and terminations, and a stoked distrust in science, Steven Artandi, the director of Stanford Cancer Center, worries that young investigators will feel disenchanted by the U.S. research atmosphere and take their work and study elsewhere.  “The uncertainty in the current system is giving some people pause, especially younger people, whether they’re Am...

“Patient stories, as you know, can either make or break a story,” said Laurie McGinley, a former health and science editor at The Washington Post who is now on the board of Patient Action for Cancer Research, or PACR, a new advocacy organization aimed at organizing and amplifying patient voices in an effort to protect life-saving federal health research. In last week’s issue, The Cancer Letter rep...

With little fan fare, Anthony Letai, a highly respected physician-scientist, was sworn in as the 18th director of the National Cancer Institute on Sept. 29. Then, two days later, on Oct. 1, the government shut down. The news of Letai’s apparent appointment was broken last week in the media, with no word from the White House. Although HHS has published a press release announcing Letai’s appointment...

With the fiscal year drawing to a close, grant funding from NCI is picking up speed, offering a glimmer of hope to cancer researchers who are beginning to feel cautiously optimistic about the road ahead. Following firm bipartisan pushback against the White House’s proposed budget cuts for FY2026, both the House and Senate have reaffirmed their support for biomedical research.   At last week’s annu...

Readers of The Cancer Letter and listeners of The Cancer Letter Podcast are familiar with the impact of President Donald Trump’s first nine months in office on the field of oncology. Now, the threats posed to oncology are being brought to the attention of a general audience—Jonathan Mahler, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine , wrote an in-depth article about how the Trump administration’...

In the face of the unknown, two cancer center leaders discuss planning for the future, recovering from their losses, and holding on to what they still have.  Right now, there are more questions than answers.  “It's hard to plan, and try to make sure that what we're doing in the cancer research space is going to be funded,” said Ben Ho Park, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center....

As NIH and NCI funding is negotiated in Congress, Paul W. Thurman felt compelled to crunch some numbers. He compared the U.S.’s cumulative funding for NCI to the funding slated for ICE—the latter of which vastly outweighs the former—and asked whether the funding priorities of the federal government are properly representing the nation’s mortality.  “I think the way a government or the way a people...

When Robert A. Winn was named director of the University of Illinois Cancer Center in 2015, he knew that the skills required to be a successful cancer center director were very different from the skills he drew upon to be a successful scientist. So, he formed an informal, personal mentorship team. “I know they got tired of me, but I called them almost once a month,” Winn said. In this episode of T...

In his new book, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson,” Gardiner Harris, who was previously the public health and pharmaceutical business reporter for The New York Times , talks about the history of the overuse of red blood cell growth factors in oncology.  In conversation with The Cancer Letter editor and publisher Paul Goldberg, Harris and Goldberg discuss their parallel cov...

Phil and Penny Knight made a record-setting $2 billion gift to OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. The gift—which appears to be the largest single donation ever made to any U.S. university, college or academic health center—was announced together with an organizational restructuring that makes the Knight Cancer Institute into a self-governed entity within Oregon Health and Science University.  The move...

In the last three years of her life, Andrea Werblin Reid wrote 150 poems on living with ovarian cancer and end of life. Werblin Reid died of ovarian cancer in 2022. Her third collection of poetry, “To See Yourself As You Vanish,” will be published Sept. 9.  In this episode of In the Headlines, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor with The Cancer Letter , talks to Werblin Reid’s husband, Angus (Gus) Re...

Mary Beckerle, a whitewater kayaker, has advice for all the folks in the cancer field: never catastrophize, never panic.  “Back in the day, I used to whitewater kayak, and you’ve got your paddle, and you’re in the water. “And when you hit that rapid, the one thing you know you have to do is take that paddle and dig it into that wave and pull yourself through with gusto and with determination. And...

While doing somewhat-routine reporting on this year’s Senate Appropriations Committee bills, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter , quickly realized that he was seeing a full bipartisan rejection of President Donald J. Trump’s plan to defund and therefore dismantle biomedical research in the United States. In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate edi...

Do multi-cancer detection tests provide a net benefit? NCI aims to answer this question, beginning with the Vanguard feasibility trial which recently started accruing patients. Sara Willa Ernst, The Cancer Letter’s newest reporter, made her The Cancer Letter podcast debut this week to talk about her first cover story: The launch of NCI’s Vanguard feasibility study. Sara was joined by Paul Goldberg...

NIH has announced it will stop issuing funding opportunities solely dedicated to animal models, but has not published any formal guidance related to the announcement, and researchers are unclear on when or whether further policy materials are to be expected.  In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Paul Goldberg, publisher of The Cancer Letter , and Claire Marie Porter, reporter, talk about...

As oncology braces for funding, Medicaid cuts, two directors tell young investigators not to panic. “I don't think any good cancer center director would be worth their weight in salt if they weren't worried about something at night,” said Mark Evers, director of Markey Cancer Center. Speaking on The Cancer Letter Podcast, Evers and Steven Libutti, the William N. Hait Director of Rutgers Cancer Ins...

A new model aims to change the standard of care around medical debt by addressing the financial toll of cancer using a multidisciplinary, tumor board model approach. Now, recent five-year data shows that it’s working.  This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.  In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter , and Claire Marie Port...

In last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter, the cover story featured Col. Susan Fondy, an Army veteran and stage 3 breast cancer survivor, who is now living with lymphedema. Fondy is now a lymphedema advocate, working to prevent further cuts to the already-sparse funding for the disease. Fondy’s story is the first of many The Cancer Letter plans to publish in order to highlight the human impact of...

MD Anderson and Texas Children’s Hospital have entered into a collaboration to build a $1 billion pediatric cancer hospital. The hospital, tentatively slated to open in 2031 or 2032, is on track to become one of the largest pediatric cancer hospitals in the world.  Peter WT Pisters, MD Anderson’s president, appears as a special guest in this week’s episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast. Together wi...

A 25-year old idea, a concept named “the American Centers for Cures,” proposed by Lou Weisbach, a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a political insider, aims to shift the paradigm of research funding.  In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter , and Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher, talk about Weisbach’s bold $750 billion bond plan...

In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Jacquelyn and Paul talk about the first meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board, the uncertainty of cancer registries, and about choosing what to cover as the Trump administration “floods the zone.” At the time of recording, the recording of the two June 10 NCAB meetings had been taken off the videocast website, raising concerns about the availab...

Directors of two neighboring cancer centers in Upstate New York will face challenges but “we’ll get through it.” Candace Johnson leads America’s oldest cancer research center and Jonathan Friedberg leads the newest NCI-designated center. Their catchment areas are contiguous, their faculties and staff work seamlessly together, and together their institutions embody the culture of NCI-designated can...

“Your entire practice, cancer has been associated with an aging population, and then you have a young, beautiful, healthy-looking woman like Alisa Secaida come into your office, it's not a surprise that the doctor, their knee-jerk reaction would be like, ‘Maybe just slow down,’” said The Cancer Letter ’s Claire Marie Porter. In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, editor and publis...

“Patients are counting on us, and this remains the best time to be involved in cancer research,” W. Kimryn Rathmell said to The Cancer Letter .  Rathmell spoke with The Cancer Letter ’s Paul Goldberg on her first day as CEO of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. “We can now study, in patients, things that...