Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s Dr. M. Elizabeth ‘Betz’ Halloran has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, a high honor in the fields of health and medicine. Halloran is one of the world’s top experts in statistical methods for evaluating vaccines and vaccination strategies to stop outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases. The Academy announced its 100 new members today in conjunction with its annual…
Dr. Michael Boeckh, one of the world’s leading experts in viruses that afflict patients with compromised immune systems, will deliver the prestigious John F. Enders Lecture Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C., at IDWeek, an annual conference of doctors and researchers specializing in infectious diseases. Boeckh is head of the Infectious Disease Sciences program at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He will talk…
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded $30 million in first-year funding to establish new centers for immunology research to accelerate progress in tuberculosis (TB) vaccine development. New and improved TB vaccines are badly needed. Over the past 200 years, TB has claimed the lives of more than 1 billion people—more…
The Allen Institute debuted the 2019 Next Generation Leaders, a group of six early-career neuroscientists who will participate in a special advisory council for the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a division of the Allen Institute. Now in its sixth year, the Next Generation Leaders Program was created for and by researchers in early stages of their scientific career, who…
Washington Research Foundation (WRF) has pledged over $1.5 million in additional support for a novel immunotherapy platform being developed in Dr. Jim Olson’s lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch). The Olson lab’s Simultaneous Multiple Interaction T-Cell Engagers (SMITEs) technology offers a new approach for harnessing the patient’s immune system to more specifically target cancerous cells. Possible benefits…
Patrick Wilson, PhD, professor of medicine and rheumatology at the University of Chicago, and a group of researchers from three other institutions have received a Grand Challenge for Universal Influenza Vaccine Development grant – a $12 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Flu Lab. The group will receive up to $2 million over two years…
A mutation in a cancer-promoting gene is often considered the first step on the path toward cancer. But just last year, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center postdoctoral fellow Dr. Zhe Ying discovered that instead of accelerating along this path, skin stem cells can respond to these mutations by taking the first exit, using a strategy he dubbed oncogene-induced differentiation. In this…
How do brain circuits control navigation? What gives spider silk proteins their strength? Can CRISPR help scientists design better drugs for treating tuberculosis? These questions represent a slice of the diverse and compelling science studied by the 15 new Hanna Gray Fellows announced today by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The Institute will invest up to $25 million for…
If the world were to experience a replay of the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people, it could very likely involve a jump of ever-evolving avian flu strains from wild birds to domestic poultry to humans. Despite studies suggesting that just a few mutations in the genes of the bird flu virus could generate a new…
Dr. Cameron Turtle, a hematology oncologist and pioneering researcher into CAR T-cell therapy, is the inaugural recipient of the Anderson Family Endowed Chair for Immunotherapy at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Ric and Kaylene Anderson and their three children presented the chair to Turtle Aug. 28 during a luncheon at Fred Hutch. “My wife and I have proudly supported the…