April 28, 2025
Myelinated axons are depicted in a rat spinal root. Myelin is a type of fat that forms an insulating sheath around the axon to protect it from losing electrical current needed to transmit signals. Axoplasm inside the axon is shown in pink.
Image courtesy of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at UC San Diego.
April 25, 2025
We’re on Radiolab! Hudson Freeze, PhD, director of the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center joins the legendary science podcast to recount a discovery that changed biology forever.
For years, scientists thought nothing could live above 73℃/163℉.At that temperature, everything boiled to death. But scientists Tom Brock and Hudson Freeze, PhD, now director of the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center and William W. Ruch Distinguished Chair at Sanford Burnham Prebys, weren’t convinced.
What began as their simple quest to trawl for life in some of the hottest natural springs on Earth would, decades later, change the trajectory of biological science forever, saving millions of lives.
Listen to Freeze recount a transformative moment in his early career on the latest Radiolab podcast.
April 23, 2025
Event recording now available for panel discussion with scientists held on April 16, 2025
Sanford Burnham Prebys recently welcomed members of the San Diego community for an engaging afternoon focused on the intersection of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Hosted as part of the A Conversation About series, the event featured a panel discussion with leading experts from the Center for Neurologic Diseases and Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. The afternoon offered valuable insights into how the biology of aging contributes to neurodegenerative disease and how research at Sanford Burnham Prebys is helping to shape the future of prevention and treatment.
Panelists included Dr. Su-Chun Zhang, Dr. Timothy Huang, and Dr. Anne Bang, who discussed current findings, ongoing research collaborations, and the role of translational science in accelerating progress against Alzheimer’s. The panel also included author and caregiver advocate Muffy Walker, who introduced her new novel, Memory Weavers, which draws on her personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease.
The event was introduced by Reena Horowitz, founder of Group of 12 and Friends at Sanford Burnham Prebys, whose support has been instrumental in fostering dialogue around science and health within our community.
April 21, 2025
In the world of animal models, naked mole rats are supermodels despite their novel appearance. They are extremely long-lived, sometimes more than 30 years. They rarely get cancer. And they can survive up to 18 minutes without oxygen.
April 18, 2025
Cosimo Commisso discussed his lab’s contributions to the pancreatic cancer research community on the Project Purple Podcast
Cosimo Commisso, PhD, interim director and deputy director of the NCI-Designated Cancer Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys, was the featured guest on Episode 309 of the Project Purple Podcast.
Commisso discussed his lab’s work studying pancreatic cancer with Project Purple CEO and founder Dino Verrelli, including efforts to understand pancreatic cancer cells’ appetite for glutamine, one of the 20 amino acids used to build proteins throughout the body. The Commisso lab has shown that feeding tumors a glutamine copycat starves them of the fuel they need to survive and grow.
Commisso and Verrelli also discussed:
Project Purple is a nonprofit organization focused on pancreatic cancer research and support for patients and their families. Since 2008, Project Purple has raised more than $3.5 million to support pancreatic cancer research efforts, including improving early detection and finding new curative treatments.
April 14, 2025
Scientists show that an established cancer drug travels to and shrinks some brain tumors, which may lead to new therapies for a disease with few treatments
Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer-related death in childhood. The deadliest of these tumors are known as high-grade gliomas, with the grade referring to how quickly certain tumors grow and spread throughout the central nervous system.
Treatment options for high-grade gliomas are limited. Surgical removal is typically the first option depending on the tumor size and location. Radiation often follows to kill any remaining cancer cells to prevent another tumor from forming.
“Drug options to pair with surgery and/or radiation are few and far between,” said Lukas Chavez, PhD, associate professor in the Cancer Genome and Epigenetics Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys. “A big reason for this is the blood-brain barrier being as formidable a boundary as the mythological River Styx.”
The blood-brain barrier can, at times, mean the difference between life and death. It protects the brain and spinal cord from potential toxins and pathogens circulating in the bloodstream. However, in its vigilance, it also blocks beneficial drugs from reaching the brain. This presents a major challenge, since most medications are designed to travel through the bloodstream after being ingested or injected.
Scientists from an international team including Sanford Burnham Prebys, the University of Michigan, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Medical University of Vienna and many other institutions published findings March 13, 2025, in Cancer Cell demonstrating that the drug avapritinib could treat certain brain tumor cells. And, like the Styx’s ferryman Charon, the medicine is one of the rare few that can cross the blood-brain barrier known to prevent the passage of more than 98% of small molecule drugs.
The researchers selected avapritinib—which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating gastrointestinal and other cancers—after finding it was the strongest commercially available drug for inhibiting the gene Platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA), which is found to be mutated in 15% of high-grade gliomas.
Lukas Chavez, PhD, is an associate professor in the Cancer Genome and Epigenetics Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys.
In addition to showing that avapritinib inhibited PDGFRA in cancer cells and mouse brain tumors, the research team tested its effects on eight human pediatric and young adult high-grade glioma patients through a compassionate-use program. The treatment was found to be safe and investigators observed that the drug caused tumors to shrink in three patients.
“More research is needed to better understand how to best repurpose this drug for high-grade gliomas,” said Chavez. “We’ll learn a lot from the ongoing Rover study, a phase 1/2 multicenter trial of avapritinib based on these findings that will include more participants.”
The authors of the new study also highlighted the need to study combining multiple targeted therapies to overcome acquired resistance to any single treatment.
Mariella G. Filbin, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and research co-director of the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, is the lead contact on the study.
Carl Koschmann, MD, ChadTough Defeat DIPG Research Professor and associate professor of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School, and Johannes Gojo, MD, PhD, head of Pediatric Precision Oncology CNS and ITCC-Lab/Clinical Trials Unit at the Medical University of Vienna, are corresponding authors along with Filbin.
Lisa Mayr, Sina Neyazi, Kallen Schwark and Maria Trissal share first authorship of the study.
Additional authors include:
April 14, 2025
Hearing begins in the cochlea, where hair cells (red) detect and amplify sound vibrations and relay the information to the brain via auditory nerve cells (green).
Image courtesy of Sonja Pyott, University of North Carolina.
April 9, 2025
The event at Sanford Burnham Prebys gathered San Diego scientists to discuss their latest findings and learn about local organizations
The Queer Scientists and Allies Symposium, or Qs and As on the Mesa, was held at Sanford Burnham Prebys on Friday, April 4, 2025. The event was developed to create community connections and highlight the work of LGBTQIA+ researchers on the Torrey Pines Mesa.
The symposium began with a series of discussions and scientific talks in Building 12’s Victor E. LaFave III Memorial Auditorium. David A. Brenner, MD, president and chief executive officer of Sanford Burnham Prebys, opened the event by welcoming the meeting participants.
Jaycee Baker-Saunders, director of Research Administrative Services at Scripps Research, spoke on behalf of the Pride Alliance at Scripps Research. Baker-Saunders detailed her career path in research administration and shared how she works with the Pride Alliance at Scripps Research to have constructive conversations with executive leaders about the concerns of LGBTQIA+ staff.
Christopher Anderson, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), spoke on behalf of the Queer Science Society and discussed his use of multi-scale engineering approaches to help understand, diagnose and treat heart diseases.
James Walker, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, was the symposium’s final speaker. Walker presented on behalf of the Salk Pride Society and described his research on developmentally regulated DNA methylation and its relationship to gene expression in plants.
Following the formal program, attendees enjoyed networking with each other and visiting tables sponsored by local organizations that promote engagement and belonging for queer scientists and allies:
The 2025 Queer Scientists and Allies Symposium was hosted by Sanford Burnham Prebys and its Office of Workplace Engagement and Belonging, the Salk Pride Society, Queer Science Society, the Pride Alliance at Scripps Research and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.
Speaker introductions at Qs and As on the Mesa were provided by: Emma Robinson, graduate student at Scripps Research and co-founder of the Pride Alliance at Scripps Research; Anneliese Gest, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmacology at UCSD; and Todd Maxwell, environmental health and safety specialist at the Salk Institute and co-chair of the Salk Pride Society.
April 7, 2025
A confocal micrograph depicts tongue epithelial cells adjoined by several bacterial species to form a complex biofilm on the tongue’s surface. The oral cavity has the second largest and most diverse microbiota after the gut.
Image courtesy of Tagide deCarvalho, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
April 1, 2025
A recent story in The New York Times describes how new and changed federal policies pose long-term risk to science and the economic gains it creates.
Highlighted in the article is the story of Hudson Freeze, PhD, director of the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, who as an undergraduate student at Indiana University was involved in the discovery of heat-resistant microbes.
Those microbes would prove critical to the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a DNA replication tool that is now ubiquitous in genetic science and beyond.