2020 was an unprecedented year for health care across the globe. At Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, in partnership with RWJBaranabas health, our commitment to providing the most advanced, comprehensive, and compassionate world-class cancer care to adults and children has never been stronger. Through the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, our team of internationally recognized physicians and researchers have been able to continue working together on translating discoveries into new approaches in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Below is a selection of milestones and research discoveries from Rutgers Cancer Institute this past year. As 2020 comes to a close, we reflect on the many achievements and look forward to 2021 as our teams continue to address our mission of fighting cancer.
A $25 million anonymous philanthropic gift will support faculty recruitment, shared resource development, and research to help scientists better understand the human immune response to cancer and ultimately develop the foundation for new treatments or make existing therapies more effective.
Rutgers Research Identifies Safe and Effective Method of Delivering Medicines to the Lungs
Investigators at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School recently identified a new method for safe and effective delivery of medicines to the lungs that can be used for multiple clinical applications, potentially including aerosol vaccination.
Researchers from Rutgers Cancer Institute evaluated the frequency of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on various environmental surfaces in outpatient and inpatient hematology/oncology settings located within Rutgers Cancer Institute and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
Steve K. Libutti, MD, FACS, was awarded a $1.2 million ‘ Petersen Accelerator Award’ from the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF) to pursue work leading to precise treatments for neuroendocrine tumors – an uncommon cancer impacting an estimated 171,000 Americans.
Research from Rutgers Cancer Institute shows administering the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab together with chemotherapy given at the same time as radiation treatment (chemoradiation) is safe and tolerable as a first-line therapy for patients with stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM), and Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey have received a five-year, $4.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to determine how chemotherapy exerts its damaging effects on the brain.
Investigators at Rutgers Cancer Institute conducted a systematic review on the feasibility and challenges of breastfeeding among breast cancer survivors of reproductive age. Their findings suggest that breastfeeding from the unaffected breast is feasible for some breast cancer survivors.
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey has received a $1.6 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (1R25CA247785-0) to support the Rutgers Youth Enjoy Science (RUYES) Program.