Ludwig Cancer Research
@ludwigcancer
We fund cutting-edge scientific research across multiple Branches and Centers to better understand cancer and eliminate the suffering caused by the disease.
Ludwig @unil.bsky.social’s @johannajoyce.bsky.social writes in Nature Reviews Cancer’s 25th Anniversary edition about the low representation of women in the senior ranks of cancer research and the policy changes and practices that could help address this persistent disparity. LINK: bit.ly/458OYj6
Studies led by Ludwig @princeton.edu’s Jenna AbuSalim & Joshua Rabinowitz show that plant fibers & proteins reprogram microbial metabolism to make healthful metabolites & suppress harmful ones & that many metabolites attributed to gut bugs are also made by mammalian metabolism. bit.ly/4vQ2Zgf
Members of Cancer Grand Challenges ATLAS Team, including Ludwig Oxford Director Xin Lu and Ludwig Institute CEO Chi Van Dang, argue in this Cell Commentary that antibody responses shape cancer risk, progression and outcomes and discuss how they plan to test that hypothesis. bit.ly/45kwiga
Members of Cancer Grand Challenges ATLAS Team, including Ludwig Oxford Director Xin Lu and Ludwig Institute CEO Chi Van Dang, argue in this Cell Commentary that antibody responses shape cancer risk, progression and outcomes and discuss how they plan to test that hypothesis. bit.ly/45kwiga
Our congratulations to Ludwig Princeton’s Michael Skinnider, winner of the 2026 ICTP-IBM Brahmagupta Artificial Intelligence Prize for Early Career Scientists, which celebrates applications of AI to science that promise to be of general benefit to society. bit.ly/4pAf87x
Researchers led by Ludwig Oxford’s Bethan Psaila and UCL’s Martin Pule have devised and preclinically evaluated CAR-T cells that target the stem cell drivers of a substantial subset of a family of blood cancers known as myeloproliferative neoplasms. Check it out: bit.ly/3Tykcxj
A warm welcome and congratulations to Bernhard Gentner, Caroline Arber and Christian Hinrichs, a trio of talented physician-scientists who’ve just been appointed Clinical Scholars of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Learn more: bit.ly/3SFqSJH
Our congratulations to Ludwig @princeton.edu’s @skinnider.bsky.social on his being named a Pew Scholar. The award will support his rapidly advancing efforts to enlist AI to identify the countless small molecules in our bodies, often called the “dark matter” of the metabolome. bit.ly/43A3f7F
Congratulations to Ludwig @unil.bsky.social’s @johannajoyce.bsky.social, who began her two-year term today as president of the European Association for Cancer Research @helloeacr.bsky.social. bit.ly/4aeMQcD #CanSky #OncoSky
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s @tanjinakader.bsky.social of the Santagata lab at #AACR2026, where she presented her research titled “Integrative spatial profiling of protein and chromosomal alterations across normal, precancer, and cancer revealed the presence of aneuploidy in the normal fallopian tube.”
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s @kenichi-shimada.bsky.social of the @jguerriero.bsky.social lab explains his findings at #AACR2026 showing that a combination therapy tested in the TALAVE trial altered the immune landscape of breast tumors depending on the presence of a mutant BRCA gene. #CanSky #OncoSky
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s Benjamin Wolf of the Jain lab presented at #AACR2026 his findings from preclinical studies showing how chronic high blood pressure reprograms the anti-tumor immune response in pancreatic tumors, explaining why a type of antihypertensive drug improves treatment of such patients.
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s Heena Kumra of the Jain lab presented her research at #AACR2026 in a poster titled: “Improving response of pancreatic cancer to losartan: Mechanistic insights and implications for personalized therapy.” #CanSky #OncoSky
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s Na Zhang of the Brown lab discusses the findings presented in her poster “ELF3-driven epigenetic reprogramming creates ERK pathway dependency in SERD-resistant ER+ breast cancer” with an interested attendee at #AACR2026. #CanSky #OncoSky
Ludwig @princeton.edu's Eileen White, a co-leader of the Cancer Grand Challenges CANCAN team, spoke at #AACR2026 about the team’s findings on cachexia, including how it causes metabolic dysfunction that may contribute to depression and amotivation, exacerbating the cancer-associated wasting syndrome
Ludwig @harvard.edu's Karen Cichowski spoke at #AACR2026 about her work as a member of a Cancer Grand Challenges team exploring how epigenetic changes cooperate with oncogenes to drive tumor and tissue specific biology, and the therapeutic vulnerabilities such idiosyncrasies expose. #CanSky #OncoSky
Ludwig @stanford.edu’s Crystal Mackall presented her work with @michellemonje.bsky.social at #AACR2026 on their continuing (bench-to-bedside-and-back) clinical development of CAR-T cell therapy for diffuse midline gliomas and what their lab studies reveal about the sources of treatment resistance.
Ludwig @harvard.edu’s Wafa Malik of the Hata lab at #AACR2026 presenting her work exploring adaptive drug resistance in lung cancer in a poster titled “Characterizing drug-induced transcriptional reprogramming in KRAS mutant lung cancer.” #CanSky #OncoSky
The April 2026 issue of Ludwig Link is here with scads of research briefs, news of a new Ludwig lab at Weill Cornell and a new colleague at Ludwig Oxford, and a remembrance of Ludwig MIT’s Richard Hynes, who died in January. Check it out online here bit.ly/4vJdpj1 or get the PDF bit.ly/42mFWxj
Ludwig Harvard.edu’s Simone Bruno of the Michor lab at #AACR2026 presenting his work using math modeling to explore how different epigenetic modifications influence triple-negative breast cancer, optimizing drug regimens targeting those modifications & validating his predictions in vitro.
Ludwig Harvard.edu s Alan D’Andrea spoke at #AACR2026 about how about his lab’s studies on how the dysfunction of a type of DNA repair mechanism (MMEJ) in cancer cells, such as those of Ewing sarcoma, create dependencies that might be exploited for cancer therapy.
Ludwig @stanford.edu Siddhartha Jaiswal spoke at #AACR2026 about his lab’s exploration of the drivers of clonal hematopoiesis—in which the descendants of certain mutated stem cells come to dominate the blood cell population—and the implications of the pre-malignant process for cancer.
Erin Brown of the Newman lab at Ludwig @stanford.edu presented her research at #AACR2026 in a poster titled, “Liquid biopsy profiling of the tumor microenvironment to determine response to immunotherapy regimens across solid tumors” #CanSky #OncoSky
Audre May of the Mackall lab at Ludwig @stanford.edu presented her preclinical findings at #AACR2026 on divergent and unexpected mechanisms of immune clearance triggered by anti-tumor CAR-T cells engineered to secrete the immune factor IL-18. #CanSky #OncoSky
Diya Lakshmi Ramesh of the @mvhlab.bsky.social at Ludwig MIT presented her research in cancer metabolism on a poster titled, “Cancer cells are sensitive to methionine cycle perturbation in low-lipid environments,” at #AACR2026. #CanSky #OncoSky
Sankha Subhra Chakrabarty of the Santagata lab at Ludwig @harvard.edu explained his findings to a fellow researcher at #AACR2026. Sankha’s poster was titled, “Spatial metabolic gradients drive epigenetic reprogramming in human glioblastoma.” #CanSky #OncoSky