Fueling Breakthroughs Since 2007

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In 2000, the average life expectancy for people with metastatic melanoma was seven months. Now, thanks to research and clinical trials supported by Cycle for Survival, median life expectancy has increased to over five years — and counting.

In 2018, the FDA approved larotrectinib to treat cancers caused by a specific genetic mutation called a TRK fusion. This was the first time a drug received an initial approval based on a mutation type rather than where in the body a tumor originates. MSK led its development, and Cycle for Survival funds supported the research.

The Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) is MSK’s hallmark translational research program: a collaborative hub that bridges discoveries made in the lab with clinical research, leading to new and improved treatments for cancer. Cycle for Survival support has been vital to the success of this multidisciplinary initiative. By bringing together a brilliant collective of MSK physicians and scientists who have one foot in the laboratory and the other in the clinic, HOPP serves as a unique and rapid incubator for innovative cancer-fighting strategies. Dr. Charles Sawyers leads the program, which focuses on developing novel cancer therapies, often for people who don’t yet have effective treatments.

Computational oncology is a burgeoning field within cancer research in which scientists use clinical and molecular data gathered over time to predict how cancer will respond to different treatments. This valuable information can guide treatment decisions that provide patients with the most effective route to attack their disease. Home to one of the largest data sets anywhere, MSK’s Computational Oncology program is led by Dr. Sohrab Shah. His team is working on ways to analyze and interpret this information, with the goal of yielding advanced insights to improve patient care. Cycle for Survival is powering this program.

The Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service, led by Dr. William Tap, works to improve outcomes for people facing this challenging disease. Cycle for Survival has helped build the world’s largest immunotherapy program dedicated to sarcoma, rapidly growing an arsenal of options to combat these 70-plus complex diseases known to resist treatment. This includes nearly 20 clinical trials to test novel strategies, as well as studies of ways to manipulate how drugs work and predict if a therapy will be effective for a patient before it’s even prescribed.

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that is difficult to detect in its early stages — it is often caught only after it has spread and is already inoperable. The mission of the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research is to pursue groundbreaking research focused on early detection methods, prevention, immunotherapy strategies, and genetic sequencing of this complex and challenging disease. Led by Dr. Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, the center continues to pioneer patient-specific cancer models for personalized medicine, as well as study the genetic changes in pancreatic cancer cells that cause resistance to chemotherapy.

In recent years, advances in research and genomic testing have uncovered important information that allows doctors to identify different variations of cancer — an ability that is crucial to guiding individualized treatment. An MSK team led by Dr. Britta Weigelt has found a genetic change that can help diagnose sclerosing stromal tumor (SST), an extremely rare ovarian tumor. Often misdiagnosed as cancer, SSTs are actually benign and can be treated with surgical removal alone, thus sparing patients from unnecessary, aggressive treatments.

As pioneers in immunotherapy, MSK doctors and researchers have made countless discoveries that continue to change the way cancer is treated. MSK investigators uncovered a connection that holds true across all cancers: The more DNA mutations a person’s tumor has (known as the tumor mutational burden), the more likely the cancer is to respond to the immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors. They also reported on a possible way to quantify how efficient the immune system is at detecting cancer.

The Sloan Kettering Institute laboratories are the crucial experimental research arm of MSK. Directed by Dr. Joan Massagué, SKI spans nine research programs, with a staff of more than 100 laboratory investigators, 400 fellows, and 300 graduate students who work together toward SKI’s collective mission: devising better ways to combat cancer. Cycle for Survival’s longtime support for SKI has propelled innovation, advanced sophisticated technologies, and bolstered infrastructure in profound ways.

Cholangiocarcinoma is a rare but aggressive cancer that begins in the bile ducts. Using MSK-created genomic technologies, Dr. Scott Lowe and Dr. Maeve Lowery are identifying new drug targets for this disease to advance promising clinical trials to stop cancer growth via the genetic mutations found in a patient’s tumor. In addition, Dr. Ghassan Abou-Alfa is leading research into the use of targeted therapies or immunotherapies, based on patients’ genetic profiles, that will help overcome resistance to classic treatments like chemotherapy in bile duct, gallbladder, and liver cancers.