A team of scientists and specialists from NCI at Frederick, NCI at Bethesda, the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, and Data Management Services, Inc., has developed the first method for identifying natural products that could increase the effectiveness of camptothecin-based cancer treatments.

The National Cancer Institute and Children’s Oncology Group recently opened enrollment for a new Phase II trial of personalized precision cancer therapies. Called the Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (Pediatric MATCH), the trial seeks to treat children and adolescents aged 1­–21 whose solid tumors have failed to respond to or re-emerged after traditional cancer treatments.

According to a study in Plant Biotechnology Journal, genetically modified rice could be an inexpensive production platform for microbicides that inhibit HIV entry into target cells. Such a method could be one sustainable option for poverty-stricken countries with high rates of AIDS.

Until 2007, the Zika virus remained relatively obscure. That year, however, Zika infections were recorded in three-quarters of the population of Yap, a small island located between the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. A major outbreak in French Polynesia followed in 2013.

Before a crowded auditorium of science and business professionals at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research’s Advanced Technology Research Facility (ATRF), Joost Oppenheim, M.D., had just finished his presentation about a compound with the potential to expand the impact of a promising category of cancer therapeutics when he fielded a question from Stephan Stern, Ph.D.