Fox Chase Cancer Center News

PHILADELPHIA (March 10, 2021)— Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center have demonstrated that fitness trackers such as Fitbit are feasible tools for assessing performance status—the ability to perform activities of daily living—in colorectal cancer patients. The finding is important because performance status is used to determine whether cancer patients may tolerate more or less aggressive forms of treatment and how they are holding up during treatment.

PHILADELPHIA (March 3, 2021)—Margie L. Clapper, PhD, co-leader of Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program, has been awarded a grant by the Prevent Cancer Foundation to investigate the use of atorvastatin, also known by the brand name Lipitor, to prevent cancer in patients with Lynch syndrome. Clapper will be working with Michael J. Hall, MD, MS, co-leader of Fox Chase’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program, on the project. 

PHILADELPHIA (March 2, 2021)—Fox Chase Cancer Center has launched a new Cancer Epigenetics Institute (CEI) that will create a locally based national hub for epigenetics study and collaboration focused on mechanisms promoting cancer and therapeutic resistance.

PHILADELPHIA (February 22, 2021)—Kristen D. Whitaker, MD, MS, assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Genetics at Fox Chase Cancer Center, recently received a grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research to study ways of improving diversity in clinical cancer trials. The grant was funded by Hooters of America, LLC.

PHILADELPHIA (February 15, 2021) – Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have helped to identify a cellular resilience mechanism through which acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells survive cancer treatment and repopulate leukemia, causing disease relapse. The research also suggests that certain drugs could be used to destroy these treatment-surviving AML cells.

PHILADELPHIA (February 5, 2021)—Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have found that patients with signet-ring cell gastric carcinoma (SRGC) and non-signet-ring cell gastric carcinoma (NSRGC), two variants of stomach cancer, have better overall survival when they are treated at academic centers compared to community centers.

PHILADELPHIA (February 2, 2021) – New research out of Fox Chase Cancer Center has shed light on how an important type of T cell–gamma delta T cells–develop and are assigned their effector function. 

PHILADELPHIA (February 1, 2021)—Fox Chase Cancer Center will host a virtual symposium on cancer epigenetics on March 2 that will explore discoveries related to epigenetic mechanisms of tumorigenesis and novel therapies to better target cancer.