An mRNA cancer therapeutic vaccine has delivered a positive Phase III readout, the first individualized neoantigen therapy and the first mRNA tumor treatment product to succeed at Phase III. The trial enrolled 1137 patients randomized 2:1. The result establishes that this development route can work, not that vaccines cure cancer.
A Nature paper maps spatial proteome distribution across the human body and cancers, built from 2856 clinical specimens analyzed by DIA-MS and covering more than 13,000 proteins. The dataset spans 58 major tissue types, 251 tissue subtypes and 25 cancers, and traces proteome trajectories across physiological states including fetal, tumor, adjacent non-tumor and healthy adult tissue.
China's NMPA has approved a new indication for Daiichi Sankyo (China)'s datopotamab deruxtecan injection, for adults with unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who are not suitable for PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor therapy. The approval, shown on the NMPA website on October 8, 2026, was detailed in a Daiichi Sankyo press release. Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for about 10%-15% of all breast cancers and is aggressive with high recurrence and poor prognosis.
Variant effect mapping of 186,676 variants across 17 RAS-MAPK pathway proteins in human cells, totaling 503,099 measurements of protein abundance and pathway activity, revealed 14,412 dominant negative variants across 12 proteins, nearly all previously unknown and depleted from the human population. HSP90 inhibition experiments showed HSP90 shapes the effect of 67% of missense variants across the pathway. The data also resolved how the KRAS switch II helix surface accommodates overlapping LZTR1 and SOS1 interactions through distinct allosteric networks.
Droplet-MT jointly profiles transcriptomes and methylomes at ~10,000 cells per library, using methylation epimutations for mutation-independent clonal reconstruction and label transfer at ~0.2% CpG coverage to cut sequencing cost. Applied to ~21,000 paired profiles from healthy blood and longitudinal acute myeloid leukemia, it resolved small and expanded clones with heterogeneous lineage output and distinguished malignant clonal abundance changes, state remodeling within persistent clones, and recovery of healthy polyclonal hematopoiesis. Malignant monocytes stayed transcriptionally and epigenetically distinct from healthy and recovery-associated cells despite treatment-associated remodeling.
A multi-omics study has produced GCSS, a model that predicts how patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma will respond to TACE combined with immunotherapy. The model was streamlined into a multiplex immunohistochemistry assay requiring only 6 markers. Teams from Chongqing University Shapingba Hospital and Zhejiang University School of Medicine published the work in Cell Reports Medicine, titled "Multi-omics-driven personalized management of advanced HCC."
Gallium-FAPI-46 PET/CT reached 100% sensitivity in characterizing indeterminate liver lesions, outperforming FDG PET/CT at 70% in a prospective head-to-head study by Medical University of Graz researchers. Dynamic imaging separated benign from malignant lesions: benign lesions showed transient high uptake that cleared within 10 minutes, while malignant lesions showed persistent high uptake. FAPI-46 also showed longer tumor retention and higher image contrast than FAPI-04.
Chemiluminescent tetrazine probes (CLTZs) stay dark until a bioorthogonal reaction with bicyclononyne (BCN) unlocks emission, enabling biomarker and bioorthogonality dual-locked cancer urine testing. Pairing an H2O2 and BCN dual-locked probe (HBCP) with a cancer-activatable urinary reporter (CBUR) gave in vivo tumor imaging with a signal-to-background ratio of 438 and detected lung metastasis in urinary assays with up to 23.9-fold signal enhancement over healthy mice. The work adds a molecular design route to noninvasive chemiluminescent diagnostics.
Envisagenics and Boehringer Ingelheim entered a multi-year research collaboration and option agreement announced on September 22, 2026, worth more than $1 billion in total. The partners will validate selected tumour-specific targets and develop first-in-class precision therapies for solid tumours, using Envisagenics' AI-driven approach that turns alternative RNA splicing into a drug discovery frontier.
Armoring CAR T cells with a secreted tenascin-C-targeted single-chain variable fragment (TNC-scFv) enhanced cytotoxicity, persistence, and reduced exhaustion in vitro and in xenograft tumor models. Single-cell transcriptomics showed the approach reprograms the tumor microenvironment toward a CD8+ T cell-enriched, functionally active immune landscape, and humanized tumor models showed robust antitumor responses with minimal systemic toxicity. Combining the armoring with interleukin-2 further increased efficacy while mitigating cytokine-associated toxicity, establishing extracellular matrix-directed armoring as a generalizable strategy for solid tumors.
The study compared four hyperthermia modalities — water bath, amplitude-modulated and non-modulated radiofrequency, and magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) — on U87 and FaDu 3D spheroids at CEM43 doses of 15, 30 and 120. Effects were comparable across modalities at moderate doses, but MNP heating at 45 °C reduced U87 viability to 29% on day 7. Reduced BRCA2 protein in both spheroid types suggests possible impairment of homologous recombination repair, which was not functionally validated.
A technique called ULTRA produces three-dimensional pathology of brain tissue in about 30 minutes, fast enough for use during glioma surgery. Diffuse glioma cells infiltrate normal brain beyond what visual inspection and MRI can identify, and earlier 3D histology methods took hours to days because of labeling, staining and repeated imaging, ruling out intraoperative use. ULTRA is intended to identify the infiltrating tumor boundary during the operation.
Median progression-free survival reached 42 months for iberdomide plus daratumumab and dexamethasone (IberDd), versus daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone, with a progression-free survival hazard ratio of 0.49. Bristol Myers Squibb reported the positive EXCALIBER-RRMM study results, which evaluated efficacy and safety in 800 multiple myeloma patients at first relapse or later.
VISTA expression rises with ovarian cancer progression and tracks with infiltration of FOXP3+CXCR5+ Tfr-like cells in tumor tissues. In vitro, VISTA overexpression and silencing showed VISTA drives Tfr-like cell proliferation and secretion of IL-10 and TGF-beta 1, suppresses IL-21 and granzyme B, and reduces AKT and ERK1/2 phosphorylation. The work links VISTA to immunosuppressive Tfr function via the AKT/MAPK pathway, supporting VISTA-targeted immunotherapy in ovarian cancer.
Hokkaido University researchers, working with an international team led by University of South Florida Health and Tampa General Hospital, have shown that the 30-year-old sphingolipid rheostat model operates in the tumor microenvironment rather than inside cancer cells in metastatic colorectal cancer. Analysis of 574 human colon cancer tissue samples showed that rising sphingosine-1-phosphate and falling long-chain ceramide create a biochemical barrier that excludes cytotoxic T cells. In lab experiments, blocking S1P/S1PR3 let killer T cells attack tumors again, pointing to a combination strategy with immunotherapy.
Patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) already had lower bone density than age-matched controls and lost further bone density over three years, according to the prospective BoHemE study of 111 patients and 84 controls. Osteoporosis at baseline was linked to poorer overall survival, and a DNMT3A mutation in blood-forming cells was associated with lower bone density. The findings argue for making bone health part of routine MDS diagnosis and management.
Aerri (Allist) said the overseas Phase III FURVENT study of its core product furmonertinib failed, and that the data need further analysis before deciding on continued development and regulatory discussions. At a global investigator meeting, experts judged that furmonertinib met prior efficacy expectations in EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations. The company said progression-free survival assessed by blinded independent central review in the chemotherapy arm differed substantially from investigator assessment, and that all other data for the drug looked good.
Why it matters: Company attributes a failed Phase III furmonertinib trial to an assessment discrepancy in the control arm, which affects the drug's future.
In the TOSYMA randomised trial, screening with digital breast tomosynthesis plus synthesised 2D mammography avoided roughly a quarter of invasive interval breast cancers over 24 months compared with digital mammography alone. The primary outcome did not reach statistical significance. The trial adds evidence supporting tomosynthesis plus s2D in breast cancer screening.
China's NMPA approved datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd) on September 29, 2026 for adults with unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who are not suitable for PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor treatment. It is the first and only TROP2-targeting ADC approved for this indication with an overall survival benefit, and it marks Dato-DXd's second breast cancer approval in China after HR-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.
