Science
Science is the AAAS flagship and Nature's main rival. It is home to landmark cancer papers on mismatch repair and immunotherapy, cancer genome sequencing, liquid biopsy and the microbiome.
Science is a weekly multidisciplinary journal. Cancer landmarks include the Vogelstein group's tumour sequencing and CancerSEEK papers, the mismatch-repair deficiency and PD-1 tumour-agnostic work, gut microbiome and immunotherapy response studies, and the ecDNA and chromothripsis discoveries. Subscription with free access after 12 months and a green open-access policy; Science Translational Medicine and Science Immunology are sister titles.
A blood test can find early, treatable cancers in people who feel well, including cancers for which no screening exists. It is not a replacement for mammography or colonoscopy but a possible addition. Larger randomised trials are needed to show benefit outweighs harm.
This paper established a new regulatory paradigm: a drug approved for a molecular feature regardless of organ. It made MSI/MMR testing standard across advanced cancers and remains the clearest example of a biomarker that works across histologies. It also anchored the idea that mutation load, via neoantigens, is what makes tumours visible to T cells.
Carrying a cancer mutation is normal; most mutant clones never become cancer. This means blood or tissue tests that look for driver mutations alone will produce false positives, and that the question of what tips a mutant clone into cancer (tissue environment, further hits, immune surveillance) is as important as the mutation itself.
There are not thousands of cancer genes, and any one patient's tumour is driven by only a few of them. That makes targeted sequencing panels sensible, but because most drivers are lost tumour suppressors, drugs exist for only a minority, which is why the same group turned to early detection.
Every checkpoint inhibitor, from ipilimumab to pembrolizumab, rests on this idea: the immune system can already recognise cancer and just needs its brakes released. It changed the goal of immunotherapy from vaccinating against tumours to unleashing existing T cells.
Invented BH3 profiling, the functional test behind venetoclax's success, before becoming NCI director.
Melanoma immunotherapy leader behind pembrolizumab's first trials and the science of why immunotherapy fails.
Discovered the TMPRSS2-ERG fusion in prostate cancer and built one of the first clinical sequencing programmes.
Discovered how lenalidomide works, launching the field of molecular-glue degraders, and defined clonal haematopoiesis before leading Dana-Farber.
Bert Vogelstein is the most-cited scientist in cancer genetics: he mapped how colorectal cancer develops and founded the field of cancer genome sequencing and blood-based detection.
Bradley Bernstein mapped the chromatin landscapes that let cancer cells switch identities and resist drugs.
Co-developed imatinib's successor dasatinib and the prostate drug enzalutamide, and explained how cancers resist targeted drugs.
Co-discovered the synthetic lethality between PARP inhibition and BRCA loss that underlies PARP inhibitor therapy.
Linked HER2 amplification to aggressive breast cancer and drove trastuzumab and later palbociclib to approval.
Computational oncologist who built open tools for interpreting tumour genomes and predicting response.
Pioneer of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in human cells, the tool behind cancer dependency screens and edited cell therapies.
Discovered that blocking CTLA-4 unleashes T cells against cancer, the work behind ipilimumab and the 2018 Nobel Prize.
Co-discovered APC, the gatekeeper gene of colorectal cancer, and co-led the first cancer genome sequences.
Immunologist who showed that the gut microbiome shapes responses to immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
Co-led the work that made pembrolizumab the first tumour-agnostic cancer drug approval, for mismatch-repair-deficient tumours.
Co-discovered EGFR mutations in lung cancer and linked Fusobacterium to colorectal cancer.
Discovered the BCR-ABL kinase activity that imatinib blocks and now hunts for new prostate cancer targets.
Runs the platform that studies patients' tumours before and after immunotherapy to learn why checkpoint drugs work or fail.
Discovered the tumour-suppressor gene PTEN, one of the most frequently lost genes in cancer.
Directs Penn's cancer centre and pioneered CD40 agonist immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer.
Adoptive T-cell therapy pioneer whose defined-composition CAR-T work led to lisocabtagene maraleucel.
Father of cancer immunotherapy: first to cure patients with IL-2 and with their own tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes.
Cloned the T-cell receptor and co-discovered CTLA-4's brake function, foundations of modern immunotherapy.
Timothy Chan showed that tumour mutational burden predicts who benefits from checkpoint inhibitors.
Showed that gene expression could classify cancers, then built the Broad into the engine of cancer genomics.
Immunologist who showed T cells recognise cancer neoantigens, the basis for personalised vaccines and TCR therapies.
William Kaelin is the Nobel laureate whose work on VHL and HIF-2α led directly to belzutifan.
Nothing links here yet.