Kimryn Rathmell: The year in cancer – 24 advances in 2024

National Cancer Institute (NCI) shared a post on LinkedIn:

“By Kimryn Rathmell,

Director, National Cancer Institute.

 What a year it has been—so many wins for cancer research!

As we bid farewell to 2024, let’s reflect on just some of the noteworthy advances in cancer research from the past year. I’ll start with 24 and invite you to share yours in the comments!

1. Accelerating clinical research through streamlined trial designs: Brisk enrollment of the Pragmatica-Lung study and launch of the PROSPECT-Lung study à more rapid answers for patients and providers.
2. The Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) released data on a large assortment of tumors, including over 2,000 cases from 21 different tumor types, and analysis tools to enable researchers to “see” into tumors across space and time, for the first time.
3. First test of TrialGPT—an AI-enabled tool to help connect the right patients to the right clinical studies at the right time in the right place. This approach has the potential to speed this process and lead to faster progress in medical research.
4. Researchers found that germline-mediated immunoediting shapes breast cancer subtypes and metastatic potential, unearthing a new class of biomarkers that may help predict tumor progression and offer a new way of understanding breast cancer origins.
5. Scientists found that delivering immunotherapy at a certain time of day—when immunosuppressive cells are most abundant—can enhance the treatment’s efficacy, taking advantage of the important role that circadian rhythm plays in regulating the immune system.
6. A promising new treatment for cancer cachexia—muscle wasting associated with advanced disease that may be responsible for ~30 percent of deaths from some cancer types.
7. One hundred percent of rectal cancer patients in a study saw their cancer improve or disappear after six months of treatment with immunotherapy (dostarlimab).
8. Enhancements to the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, a national resource that provides information on cancer statistics and outcomes—available to everyone—now with faster data assembly and production so data more closely reflects real-time trends.
9. Emergence of RAS inhibition—once considered an “undruggable” target, growing traction of many ways to target the most commonly mutated oncogene in cancer.
10. National standards for cancer survivorship care, developed by NCI in partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs—a tool for health systems and other organizations to assess survivorship care quality and align current and future survivorship services.
11. Development of an NCI Early Onset Cancer initiative to raise awareness of the rising incidence of cancers in people aged 18 to 49 and to focus research efforts to address the needs of this group of at-risk individuals.
12. Kicked off the Self-collection for HPV testing to Improve Cervical Cancer Prevention (SHIP) study, part of the NCI “Last Mile” Initiative to reduce barriers to cervical cancer screening and allow personalized risk management. Combined with HPV vaccination, ending death from cervical cancer is within reach.
13. Investigators showed that meiotic recombination 11 (MRE11) is essential for the activation of an innate immune signaling pathway in breast cancer. These findings suggest that loss of this pathway allows breast cancer cells to grow despite high levels of DNA damage and hide from the immune system.
14. Leveraging the power of a new pediatric cancer research network, researchers showed the promise of a new CAR T cell therapy against diffuse midline glioma, a hard-to-treat and highly fatal brain tumor that affects young adults and adolescents.
15. Partnering to sustain support for early-stage investigators (ESIs): NCI funded ESIs at the 17th percentile (compared to the 10th percentile for established investigators), and the American Cancer Society launched the Catalyst awards program to support high-scoring but unfunded research projects.
16. Not one, not two, but three FDA approvals for immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat endometrial cancer—as initial therapy or to treat recurrence.
17. Data show that cancer prevention and screening account for 4.75 million cancer deaths averted for breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancer between 1975 and 2020.
18. New insights into the unique way breast cancer uses sensory nerves to spread to other parts of the body—this opens the door for treatments that could stop breast cancer’s spread.
19. Release of Community Cancer Research and Quality Care Ad Hoc Working Group recommendations: expand clinical research opportunities in the community, partner with Federally Qualified Health Centers and community members, and focus on bridging research and clinical care.
20. Expanded eligibility for the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence training award to applicants with up to 6 years of postdoctoral research experience (up from the previous limit of 4 years). One of many enhancements for NCI trainees: NanCI mobile app, Inside Cancer Careers podcast.
21. Leveraging AI to more efficiently analyze protein, imaging, and other data in cancer at scale—for example, harnessing data through the Biomedical Data Fabric Toolkit—a partnership of NCI, ARPA-H, and Frederick National Lab.
22. Cancer centers matter. One center’s experience in training community college students for work in clinical research teams builds a much needed workforce, provides opportunities for young talent, and strengthens community relationships. Triple win.
23. Launch of the Virtual Clinical Trials Office, bringing virtual supports to clinical research. This new program inspired by an NCORP site’s innovation provides a centralized team that flips the script on clinical cancer research.
24. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for treatment of melanoma—the first cellular therapy approved to treat a solid tumor, and a celebration of 50 years of research that has led to the explosion in cellular therapy, poised to reshape medicine.

That’s a wrap! Though you can check out my post on Cancer Currents to get a deeper dive into my thoughts on more of this year’s exciting advances in cancer research. Even this only scratches the surface, with all the extraordinary science and ingenuity coming out day after day. The bottom line is that everyone—friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members—we all count on advances in cancer research, and some of those people wouldn’t be here today if not for the incredible work of so many to understand and find answers for everyone threatened by this disease.

We hug the ones we love all the tighter and send a prayer for those we’ve lost as we redouble our efforts in cancer research for 2025.

My best to all of you from all of us at the NCI.”

Dr. Kimryn Rathmell serves as the director of the National Cancer Institute. She is a distinguished leader and researcher in the field of kidney cancer. Specializing in the research and treatment of complex and hereditary kidney cancers. 

She has held leadership positions with organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, she has been elected to esteemed academies including the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine.