HOUSTON, OCTOBER 15, 2026 ― At The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center , research breakthroughs are made possible through seamless collaboration between the institution's world-leading clinicians and scientists, bringing discoveries from the lab to the clinic and back. The studies below showcase the latest advances in cancer care, research and prevention.
First clinical stage covalent Werner helicase inhibitor shows proof-of-concept in Phase 1 trial
Read the full release | Read the study in Nature Medicine
For patients with cancers harboring certain genetic defects, the first-in-class targeted therapy VVD-133214 (formerly known as RO7589831), which targets the DNA repair enzyme Werner helicase, demonstrated promising durable antitumor activity and was generally well-tolerated in a Phase 1 trial. The results were first presented in a clinical trials plenary session at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025 (Abstract CT016 ). The trial was led by Timothy Yap, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., professor of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics and vice president and head of clinical development in the Therapeutics Discovery division .
"VVD-133214 appears generally safe and shows promising antitumor efficacy," Yap said. "These are encouraging clinical data, especially because this is a patient population that currently has very limited treatment options. This also further validates Werner helicase as an actionable target, which is exciting because many cancers are highly dependent on it for survival."
Researchers suggest tile-based radiation therapy as standard of care to lower risk of recurrence in brain metastases
Read the full release | Read the study in Journal of Clinical Oncology
A multicenter clinical trial found that implanting collagen tiles during brain surgery to deliver targeted radiation therapy dramatically improved tumor control, lowered the risk of recurrence and improved overall survival compared to current standard of care for patients with newly diagnosed brain metastases in need of surgical resection. The ROADS trial, co-led by Jeffrey Weinberg, M.D. , professor of Neurosurgery ; and Thomas Beckham, M.D., Ph.D. , assistant professor of CNS Radiation Oncology , is the first randomized controlled Phase 3 trial comparing GammaTile cesium-131 collagen tile-based radiation therapy (TBRT) against standard-of-care postoperative stereotactic radiation therapy (SRT). These results were originally presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA2000 ).
After one year, patients treated with TBRT had a 1.3% rate of recurrence at the surgical site compared to 15.4% of patients in the SRT arm, a dramatic improvement meaning patients and their doctors were much less likely to face the challenges of salvage procedures such as additional surgery or radiation. Median overall survival, a key secondary endpoint of the trial, was 42.5 months with TBRT – more than double the 17.6 months seen with standard SRT.
"Implanting the radioactive tiles at the time of surgery guarantees that patients receive their treatment immediately, along with focal dose escalation, thereby having meaningful impact on local tumor control," Weinberg said. "From a patient standpoint, we're showing that there's almost four times the length of local control and an increase in overall survival. It's not just a little difference. It's a massive difference."
Randomized trial finds targeting individual metastases in oligometastatic breast cancer does not improve survival
Read the full release | Read the study in Journal of Clinical Oncology
Treating individual metastatic tumors with highly focused radiation or surgery did not improve progression-free or overall survival for patients with oligometastatic breast cancer receiving first-line systemic therapy, according to results from the randomized NRG-BR002 clinical trial led by Steven Chmura, M.D., Ph.D. , chair of Breast Radiation Oncology. The findings provide important evidence against routinely adding metastasis-directed treatment for patients with a limited number of breast cancer metastases when effective systemic therapy is already controlling the disease. Oligometastatic cancer refers to metastatic disease that has spread beyond the original tumor but remains confined to a small number of sites. Advances in stereotactic body radiation therapy and surgery have made it possible to eradicate individual metastases, which raises the following question: Could treating every visible site of disease delay progression or extend survival? Researchers designed this trial to directly test that approach in breast cancer.
"There has been tremendous interest in whether aggressively treating every visible metastatic site could change the natural history of breast cancer for patients with only a few metastases," Chmura said. "This randomized trial gives us important evidence that, for most patients in this setting, adding local treatment to effective systemic therapy does not improve progression-free or overall survival."
Personalized support and navigation increased genetic testing of hereditary cancers among immediate family members
Read the full release | Read the study in Journal of Clinical Oncology
Among cancer patients who received personalized support and navigation services from experts throughout the genetic testing process, their first-degree relatives – parents, siblings and children – were significantly more likely to receive genetic testing, as well. Nearly half of those relatives carried a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, which are associated with a higher risk of cancer. The findings revealed that with personalized support, genetic testing uptake for BRCA increased from 51% to 73% among at-risk family members in six months. This highlights a promising strategy to improve the use of cascade genetic testing, a process in which family members of someone known to carry a cancer-related genetic mutation are offered testing to determine if they also inherited the variant. The study was led by Roni Wilke, M.D., assistant professor of Gynecologic Oncology & Reproductive Medicine .
"This study demonstrates that simply informing relatives of their inherited cancer risk is not enough," Wilke said. "When we provided navigation to help people through the testing process, we noticed a meaningful difference in utilization and how soon people completed their testing. This creates new opportunities to enhance screening, prevention and early intervention for several hereditary cancers."
AI tool reveals what attracts immune cells to tumors and what keeps them away
Read the full release | Read the study in Nature Biomedical Engineering
Researchers developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that helps explain how immune cells find their way to specific locations in the body and why they avoid others. The findings could help scientists better understand cancer, autoimmune diseases and treatment response. The study was co-led by Tao Wang, Ph.D. , associate professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology ; and Linghua Wang, M.D., Ph.D. , professor of Genomic Medicine , executive director and head of the Center for Cellular Language Intelligence , associate member of the James P. Allison Institute ™, and focus area co-lead with the Institute for Data Science in Oncology .
"While spatial technologies can show where immune cells are located, this new tool helps us investigate why they gather in certain areas and how they reach and recognize tumor cells," Tao Wang said. "By identifying local signals that attract immune cells as well as potential barriers that may keep them out, we may be able to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets that could be used to improve patient outcomes."
