Source: News Medical Life Sciences, June 2025
Increased activity in a specific biological pathway may explain why many patients with a deadly form of skin cancer do not respond to the latest cancer treatments, a new study shows.
Publishing in the journal Cancer Research online June 10, the study featured data generated from experiments with human tissues and cells from patients with advanced melanoma that were implanted into mice. Results uncovered therapeutic targets that could limit melanoma growth in patients whose cancer failed to respond to initial treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, the study focused on a subgroup of melanoma patients with mutations in the neurofibromin 1 (NF1) gene. NF1 mutations – random changes in the molecular “letters" that make up this gene’s DNA code – are just one type among several mutations, including those in the BRAF, NRAS, and PARP genes, that are linked to many cases of cancer, particularly melanoma. As many as 27% of melanoma patients are estimated to have NF1 mutations.