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.
April 1, 2025
Two scientific meetings in late March brought together researchers studying aging and its implications for disease
Scientists from San Diego and across the United States gathered March 26-27, 2025, to discuss the latest advancements in aging research. The NIH-funded San Diego Nathan Shock Center, a collaboration among the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys and the University of California San Diego, opened the two scientific meetings with its 2025 symposium on Wednesday, March 26, at the Salk Institute in the Conrad T. Prebys Auditorium in La Jolla.
The event focused on the center’s primary research area, “The Heterogeneity of Aging.” Just as people and organisms age at different rates, scientists have demonstrated that tissues also age at their own speeds – even some cells within tissues age at a unique pace. This phenomenon, known as heterogeneity of aging, is of great interest to researchers as it may hold clues for how to develop interventions that enable people to lead healthier lives as they age.
The San Diego Nathan Shock Center Symposium convened 193 in-person attendees and another 113 virtual participants over Zoom.
Shanshan Yin, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Peter D. Adams, PhD, director and professor in the Cancer Genome and Epigenetics Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, presented an update on her research regarding breast cancer and aging. She discussed results from investigating changes in gene expression and immune system activity in breast cancer tumors as mice age, leading to increased cancer incidence. Yin was awarded a San Diego Nathan Shock Center pilot grant in 2023.
The 8th annual La Jolla Aging Meeting was held on Thursday, March 27, also in Salk’s Conrad T. Prebys Auditorium. The event brought together 257 in-person attendees and featured mostly short talks from San Diego-based postdoctoral fellows and students researching the biology of aging.
Kelly Yichen Li, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Kevin Yip, PhD, interim director of the Center for Data Sciences and professor in the Cancer Genome and Epigenetics Program, delivered a talk regarding her work on zombie-like senescent cells that persist but no longer divide like most normal cells. Li discussed her work exploring cell types in samples of liver tissue. She discovered differences in cell composition and gene expression based on the age of the samples. Li and her collaborators continue to work on methods to identify senescent cells in tissue samples, which would accelerate research in the field.
Tatiana Moreno, a graduate student in the lab of Caroline Kumsta, PhD, associate dean of Student Affairs in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and assistant professor in the Center for Cardiovascular and Muscular Diseases, detailed her studies regarding aging and the body’s cellular recycling system, a process called autophagy. Moreno discussed her findings measuring autophagy in blood samples drawn from human volunteers of various ages, including results regarding the effects of a 12-week exercise program.
Rouven Arnold, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the Adams lab at Sanford Burnham Prebys, presented his work seeking to better understand how aging can lead to a loss of the unique cellular identity that allows cells to carry out specialized functions in different organs. Arnold focused on the HIRA protein, one of the histone chaperones responsible for helping to build spools out of histones used to hold DNA like a thread. Following studies of HIRA’s role in the aging liver, his results suggest that HIRA plays a protective role to preserve liver cell identity and promote healthy aging in the liver.
Alessandra Sacco, PhD, professor and director of the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program in the Center for Cardiovascular and Muscular Diseases at Sanford Burnham Prebys, and dean of the institute’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, was a cohost for both events. Adams was a cohost for the La Jolla Aging Meeting.
About the San Diego Nathan Shock Center
The San Diego Nathan Shock Center (SD-NSC), led by Gerald Shadel, PhD, Audrey Geisel Chair in Biomedical Science and professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, was established in the fall of 2020 with the overall goal of understanding the heterogeneity of aging in order to allow development of personalized interventions to increase the number of years of healthy life.
To this end, the center provides three novel scientific Research Resource Cores to develop new human cell models of aging and enable the integrated analysis of molecular, cellular and tissue heterogeneity. The SD-NSC also supports and advocates basic biology of aging research in general through the development, training and mentoring activities of a Research Development Core and robust outreach efforts. All of these activities are accomplished via a consortium of three premier research institutions on the La Jolla Research Mesa: the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys and the University of California San Diego.
Alessandra Sacco serves as director of the SD-NSC Research Development Core and Peter Adams serves as co-director of the SD-NSC Heterogeneity of Aging Core.
March 31, 2025
In this micrograph of a liver lesion from a mouse infected with Chromobacterium violaceum, some cells are dying (red) while other healthy cells (blue) are activating a protein (green) to fight the bacteria.
Image courtesy of Edward Miao at Duke University and Vivien Maltez at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
March 26, 2025
Attendees at last week’s event welcomed the arrival of spring and learned about this holiday’s traditions and flavors
Just one day after the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox, the institute held an event on Friday, March 21, 2025, in Chairmen’s Hall to raise awareness of an ancient and enduring celebration of spring called Nowruz, or Persian New Year.
The tradition began in the Persian Empire more than 3,000 years ago and continues today. With roots in one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, Nowruz started as a sacred Zoroastrian commemoration of life, the rebirth of nature and the triumph of light over darkness.
Nowruz — “new day” in Persian — has transformed over thousands of years into a set of secular customs practiced by many communities. Thanks to the efforts of a dozen members of the United Nations, Nowruz is recognized by UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity effort to recognize and safeguard the invaluable role of cultural customs in bringing human beings closer together and ensuring exchange and understanding among them.
These traditions include a spring-cleaning ritual called khaneh tekani, or “shaking the house,” as well as a dancing event on the eve of the Wednesday prior to the equinox called Chaharshanbeh Suri or “Scarlet Wednesday.” Participants leap over fire and streams to cleanse themselves from the past year’s negativity.
Nowruz at Sanford Burnham Prebys included digital posters describing the celebration and its cultural practices. It also featured another notable tradition known as the Haft-Seen table, which includes items that symbolize different forms of hope for the new year. With “haft” meaning “seven” in Persian, there are seven foundational items that all start with the Persian letter ‘S’ or “seen.” These are:
Nowruz attendees also enjoyed customary food and santoor music provided by Mehran Ghafari, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Xiao Tian, PhD, an assistant professor in the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Sanford Burnham Prebys.
This event was a continuation of the Holidays Around the World series at Sanford Burnham Prebys. This series is planned by volunteers from labs and departments across campus, the Workforce Engagement and Belonging Council and the Office of Workplace Engagement and Belonging. The goal is to bring the Sanford Burnham Prebys community together to learn more about the many cultures represented within the institute’s faculty, staff and trainees.