Blog

Susanna Fletcher Greer: What I wish you knew about research in melanoma

Susanna Greer/LinkedIn

Feb 16, 2025, 22:07

Susanna Fletcher Greer: What I wish you knew about research in melanoma

Susanna Fletcher Greer, Chief Scientific Officer at the V Foundation, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“What I wish you knew about research in melanoma.

Together = better. Our researchers are proving that.

This the V Foundation funded study by Dr. Jessie Villanueva at The Wistar Institute offers new hope for patients with a particularly aggressive type of melanoma, one that resists standard treatments.

About 30% of melanomas have a mutation in the NRAS gene, which drives uncontrolled tumor growth. These cancers are especially difficult to treat because they don’t respond well to standard targeted therapies. Many cancer drugs work by shutting down key growth pathways, but NRAS-mutant melanomas often find ways to bypass these roadblocks, essentially rewiring themselves to survive. Patients with this type of melanoma have limited treatment options, making new approaches urgently needed.

Dr. Villanueva and team discovered a way to exploit a hidden weakness in these stubborn tumors: their dependence on fat metabolism. By shutting down a specific protein called S6K2, they disrupted how cancer cells process fats, leading to a dangerous buildup of unstable molecules. This triggered oxidative stress, a toxic overload that caused the cancer cells to self-destruct.

Even more exciting, Dr. Villanueva found a way to mimic this effect using a combination of two existing compounds: a PPARγ agonist (a drug that influences how cells use and store fat) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (healthy fats found in foods like fish and nuts). Together, these compounds pushed melanoma cells into a metabolic crisis, stopping tumor growth in tumor models.

For patients who have few options, these findings could lead to entirely new treatment strategies. Instead of blocking well-known cancer pathways (which tumors often find ways around), this approach forces cancer cells into a self-destructive cycle by turning their own metabolism against them.

At the V Foundation, we are committed to ensuring that groundbreaking discoveries like this continue. We stand with the researchers making these advances and the patients who need them. Join us at Cancer Foundation for Research | V Foundation.

Read this incredible paper here Selective abrogation of S6K2 identifies lipid homeostasis as a survival vulnerability in MAPK inhibitor–resistant NRAS-mutant melanoma | Science Translational Medicine and check out the Villanueva lab at Jessie Villanueva, Ph.D. – The Wistar Institute.”

cancer fight against cancer Global awareness Global fight against cancer Jessie Villanueva Melanoma NRAS gene OncoDaily Oncology Susanna Fletcher Greer The Wistar Institute V Foundation

New Paper Alert: Systemic management of advanced HCC: an increasingly complex game

AC-satoreotide got FDA Orphan Drug Designation status for SCLC and MCC

Oncologist Near Me – Nazik Hammad: A Leader in Cancer Care, Medical Education, and Health Equity

Garo Armen - A Bold Call to Action: Embracing Real-Time Innovation in Pediatric Cancer

Black History Month 2025: Honoring Contributions to Oncology