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Archive for April, 2024

Inova Schar Cancer named top recruiter to innovative ER+ HER2- breast cancer clinical trial

Posted in Medicine on 04/13/2024|

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Inova Schar Cancer is one of the top recruiting locations for the EMBER-4 clinical trial, a global study to evaluate a new treatment for ER+ HER2- breast cancer survivors

EMBER-4 is a Phase 3 clinical trial comparing a new drug therapy, imlunestrant, to the standard drug therapy to treat women with ER+ HER2- breast cancer. The trial is being conducted at multiple locations around the world, with Inova Schar Cancer named as one of the top recruiting centers in the United States.

“This pill is the first therapy in 30 years that could potentially replace endocrine therapy,” said study Kathleen Harnden, MD, Medical Director of Breast Oncology at Inova Schar Cancer and the principal investigator for the EMBER-4 clinical trial at Inova Schar Cancer. “This study is a bit of a unicorn. It is extremely patient centered and provides a rare opportunity to evaluate a treatment that may be better, with a higher cure rate, a lower risk of spread of breast cancer and fewer side effects.”

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Researchers Solve the Mystery of Tiny Ant Queens

Posted in Blinding People with Science on 04/01/2024|

Researchers identify two supergenes in one ant species that controls the number and size of queens in the colony

Headshot of a Formica cinerea queen. Attribution: Giulia Scarparo.

Ants are fascinating insects. The colony is sustained through complex social dynamics, with each member — the queen, males and workers (sterile females) — contributing to the greater community. While not common to all ants, some species add complexity to this dynamic with the addition of rather small queens. 

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside tackled why these additional queens are present by focusing on complex genetic structures, called supergenes, in the community. These supergenes control the origin and duplication of the petite queens in one particular ant species. The results of their study are available in the December issue of the journal Current Biology.

“We were intrigued by the tiny queens,” said senior author Jessica Purcell, associate professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside. “It’s a great system (multiple queen ant colonies) to study the evolution of supergenes, which exist in many types of organisms.”

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