A study from the Steele lab confirms that vascular normalization is the way these drugs improve patient survival. Read the press release here.

Read an interview with Dr. Jain about new medulloblastoma therapies here.

Use of existing, well-established hypertension drugs could improve the outcome of cancer chemotherapy by opening up collapsed blood vessels in solid tumors. In their report in the online journal Nature Communications, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators describe how the angiotensin inhibitor losartan improved the delivery of chemotherapy drugs and oxygen throughout tumors by increasing blood flow in mouse models of breast and pancreatic cancer. A clinical trial based on the findings of this study is now underway. Read more here and here.

Read about a recent Steele lab publication on reprogramming adult cells to produce blood vessels on the NIH director's blog.

Read an OncoLive coverage of Dr. Jain and the Steele Laboratory here.

Read about it here and here!

A multi-institutional team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers has identified a molecular pathway that appears to be essential for the growth and spread of medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children. In their report in the Feb. 28 issue of Cell, they show that blocking this pathway – which involves interactions between tumor cells and the surrounding tissues – leads to regression of all four molecular subtypes of medulloblastoma in several mouse models. "Our finding that a pathway carrying signals from host cells to tumor cells via placental growth factor and its receptor neuropilin 1 is critical to the growth of medulloblastoma, regardless of molecular subtype, strongly supports evaluating antibodies against these proteins as a novel therapeutic approach to this pediatric cancer," says Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology at MGH and corresponding author of the study. Read more here and take a look at the paper here!