Radically different
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We’re here in San Diego, on the ground at AACR — one of the best places to spot early cancer research that will turn out to be important later on. This year? Everything is coming up KRAS. And, STAT is here in force: Cancer reporter Angus Chen, reporter-at-large Damian Garde, and senior writer Matt Herper are all contributing, and we’ll be hosting an in-person event Tuesday and a virtual one Thursday. Sign up!
Last year, President Trump’s budgets included dramatic cuts to the National Institutes of Health, giving NIH funded scientists a scare and prompting outcry from scientific leaders including those at AACR. Congress firmly rejected those cuts last year, and increased the NIH budget for fiscal year 2026. In response, at this year’s AACR opening ceremony, AACR CEO Margaret Foti thanked Congress for standing up for science, with a callout for members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Earlier this month, Trump proposed a $5 billion cut to the NIH for 2027, which Foti called unacceptable during her opening remarks. “Our purpose is clear. Our mission is urgent. And our commitment is unwavering. We cannot allow our lifesaving mission to be adversely affected by the Administration’s plan to cut NIH funding by 20% for fiscal year 27,” she said.
Leanna Stokes had gotten into the habit of asking her oncologist what might be next for her treatment, and for good reason. Stokes, a 36-year-old gymnastics manager from New Rochelle, New York, had received one of the most difficult diagnoses in oncology: metastatic pancreatic cancer. Her oncologist kept mentioning two syllables, KAY-ras, referring to her cancer’s mutation on the KRAS gene. Mutations in this gene can make cancers more aggressive. But for Stokes, it was a possible key to extending her life.
“She always mentioned this — KRAS, KRAS, KRAS,” Stokes said of her oncologist. As Stokes proceeded to receive line after line of chemotherapy, she would remind herself, “It’s there. It’s there. It’s there. Then finally, it was my turn.”
Just a few years ago, such a refrain might have sounded odd to pancreatic cancer experts. For most of the nearly 50 years since KRAS was first discovered, scientists struggled to effectively drug the cancer protein. When Kevan Shokat, a biochemist at University of California, San Francisco, finally discovered how to drug a rare subset of KRAS mutant cancers, the first-generation drugs were a clinical disappointment. For the roughly 1% of pancreatic cancer patients who could receive them, the drugs improved outcomes only marginally, with resistance forming rapidly.
“We did not have a home run on the first effort,” said Channing Der, a pancreatic cancer researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “It’s fair to say we’ve been disappointed by the durability of the responses.”
But once Shokat had shown it could be done at all, more and more companies jumped into developing drugs for KRAS, with new agents now regularly moving into clinical trials. The company leading the field has been Revolution Medicines, with the drug daraxonrasib, which targets KRAS and related proteins.
This was the drug that Stokes got on her clinical trial. It transformed her life, she said, enabling her to live far longer than most patients with her diagnosis. It’s also generating immense excitement among oncologists and drug developers, who say it heralds a new era for pancreatic cancer medicine and could bring new treatments for other cancer types with KRAS mutations including lung, colorectal, endometrial, and more. Beyond Revolution Medicines, dozens of other companies are also testing promising KRAS inhibitors in the clinic.
WASHINGTON — President Trump moved on Saturday to “reverse the crisis of serious mental illness in America” by boosting access to psychedelic drugs in clinical settings. In an executive order, he directed the federal government to rush access to treatments and reevaluate their status as controlled substances.
The order directs the Food and Drug Administration to expedite some psychedelics as breakthrough drugs, as well as allowing them to be used through right-to-try legislation, which allow terminally ill patients to try experimental drugs outside of usual regulatory pathways.
Below is a lightly edited, AI-generated transcript of the “First Opinion Podcast” interview with Brinda Adhikari and Tom W. Johnson, hosts of the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” Be sure to sign up for the weekly “First Opinion Podcast” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get alerts about each new episode by signing up for the “First Opinion Podcast” newsletter. And don’t forget to sign up for the First Opinion newsletter, delivered every Sunday.
Torie Bosch: In 2025, the well-known emergency physician Craig Spencer found himself in an unexpected place: the Children’s Health Defense Conference in Austin, Texas. There, he chatted with anti-vaccine activists, MAHA supporters, and others with deep distrust of doctors and mainstream medicine. As he wrote in an essay for STAT about the experience, “I didn’t change any minds, nor did my convictions waver. But every conversation was honest and respectful.”
The nomination of a new leader for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — one who has scientific credentials and no public ties to the anti-vaccine movement — has generated sighs of relief in the public health world.
As one CDC employee, who asked not to be named, put it on Friday, among staff “the general vibe is guarded but hopeful.”
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 17 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03117-0
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