Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Sara Musetti It is shocking to absolutely no one that there are large disparities in health care outcomes associated with socioeconomic status. As Morgan McSweeney recently wrote for OncoBites, melanoma patients on Medicaid or without access to health insurance wait longer for doctor’s visits and have poorer outcomes than patients... Continue Reading →
October 11-17th is Black in Cancer Week! Co-founded this year by Dr. Henry J. Henderson (@DrHJHenderson) and Sigourney Bell (@siggs28), Black in Cancer Week is focused on “strengthening networks and highlighting Black Excellence in cancer research and medicine.” We are taking this week to highlight some articles written by our Black contributors and share the... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 7 minutes Sara Musetti Disclaimer: This article is based on summaries of academic studies and medical society guidelines. It is not intended as medical advice; if you find yourself needing to seek care during this pandemic, please contact your doctor for a discussion based on your hospital’s resources and your specific needs. The... Continue Reading →
This is not a normal week in America, and yet, in many ways, it is. Protesters have taken to the streets across the country and around the world to demand justice for the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, three Black Americans who have been murdered in the past month, two of... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti Estimated reading time: 5 minutes It seems talking about the immune system and how it can fight cancer is all the rage these days, especially here at OncoBites. But talking about it can be tricky, especially because most people seldom think about their immune system. It’s a part of your body, but… which... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti As fancy as the many cancer therapies on the market may seem, the underlying goal for all cancer medicines is the same: kill cancer cells. Chemotherapies damage the DNA of rapidly dividing cells enough that the cells die, immunotherapies train the immune system to kill cancer cells, radiation causes... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti If you’ve heard of collagen, it’s likely been in articles raving about its benefits. Maybe it was in the recent collagen broth craze, when everyone from Halle Berry to Dr. Oz claimed that the collagen in bone broth could prevent aging, improve your hair, cure arthritis, and so on.... Continue Reading →
Reading time- 4 minutes Sara Musetti The overwhelming majority of cancer “breakthroughs” that get reported on are expensive, state-of-the-art therapies that rely more and more on deeper and deeper knowledge of tumors. And those are extremely important therapies. However, these shiny discoveries tend to hide an interesting fact: our best cancer treatment is also our... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti The world of drug discovery is a frustrating, delicate world. Scientists spend years working on fine-tuning molecules to improve their function, make them safer, or even just make them easier to give to patients. We have a catalog of drugs that work on single, specific proteins only found in... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti Picture this: You walk into a strange room. Maybe you’re at a friend’s house, or the restroom in a new coffee shop, or a hotel room. It’s dark, and you can’t see, but no matter where you put your hand, you just can’t find the light switch. You know... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 minutes Sara Musetti Cancer immunotherapy has been a very hot topic here at OncoBites (because it’s a hot topic right now among cancer researchers too), but let me be super clear ⎯ it is COMPLICATED. Your immune system is balanced extremely delicately to avoid sending you into shock each time you are... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 3 minutes Sara Musetti One of the realities of cancer is that the primary tumor is rarely the cause of issues; usually, mortality and complications come from tumor cells spreading throughout the body and forming new tumors, a process called metastasis. For most cancers, the primary tumor can be surgically removed, but once... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 5 minutes Sara Musetti If someone were to ask you whether biological sex is related to the risk of cancer, you would might say yes--cis men can suffer from prostate and testicular cancer while cis women may suffer from cervical and ovarian cancer (and are at higher risk of breast cancer). Those all... Continue Reading →
So do we have a cure for cancer anytime soon? A question that every cancer researcher has probably faced multiple times in social situations. Cancer touches most of our lives, in one way or another. As cancer researchers, we consider it a privilege to be able to study the menacing disease that we are far... Continue Reading →
Reading time: 4 mins Sara Musetti “I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace.” This line, from John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars, hits hard. A young teenage survivor of cancer has had a widespread relapse picked up in one of his many routine scans since going into remission years earlier.... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti and Manisit Das Early October is an exciting time of the year when people all over the world turn their eyes to Stockholm to see the winners of the Nobel Prize. Yesterday, James Allison and Tasuku Honjo jointly won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for their work discovering the function... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti When someone says the word “cancer.” it can tie knots in the guts of even the strongest among us. There is no pretending that cancer isn’t a terrifying phenomenon that has touched most of our lives. Very few cancers, however, are able to elicit the chill that brain cancer does, in patients, family... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti Last week on OncoBites, Beth Rogoski of PhDoodles shared with us the story of liquid biopsies, blood tests that can be used to detect cancer and evaluate treatments. Today, in a follow-up piece, we’ll go into more detail as to what technologies are making their way to market, how liquid biopsies can be... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti The story of cancer is almost as old as the story of humans. As far back into ancient times as the 15th century BCE in Egypt, physicians have struggled to offer their patients any sort of relief from slowly spreading tumors. If tumors were visible to the naked eye--on the skin, breasts, neck,... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti Historians love to say that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. In science, failing to remember and understand our history means that we may need to make the same discoveries again and again. This appears to be the case for cancer immunotherapy, a new branch of research... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti I came to a realization this week. Here at OncoBites, we made a cancer research blog and then… forgot to tell our readers what cancer is. And I know, most of you reading are thinking “I know what cancer is!” because you read about it all the time. And maybe, if you’re a... Continue Reading →
Sara Musetti The word “bacteria” is often accompanied by a nose wrinkled in disgust and thoughts of infection and disease. Even though we have as many microbial cells as human cells within each of us—that’s right, we’re 50% bacteria—most people still find bacteria something to avoid. However, recent research into the gut microbiome, the ecosystem... Continue Reading →
Here at OncoBites, a team of cancer professionals and advocates has gathered to share cutting-edge research with a non-specialist audience. We understand that jargon and isolated professional communities have made science feel inaccessible to most people, even people considering the field. In addition, paywalls on articles can make trying to investigate topics alone a challenge.... Continue Reading →
OncoBites 