As we flip the calendar over to 2018, let’s take a look back at 10 highlights from Fred Hutch research in 2017:

New insights could make CAR T-cell therapy safer

A kind of cancer immunotherapy called CAR T-cell therapy grabbed headlines in 2017, particularly when the FDA approved the first two products this fall. The promising therapies reprogram immune cells to eliminate certain blood cancers but can cause serious side effects in some patients. To help make the approach safer, Hutch researchers led by Dr. Cameron Turtle are studying those effects in unprecedented detail.

Bringing a leukemia treatment back to life

New research breathed life back into a leukemia drug originally developed at Fred Hutch. Hailed in 2000 as the first approved “magic bullet” drug, gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) was later pulled off the market due to concerns about safety and effectiveness. In June, Dr. Soheil Meshinchi and collaborators reported that a single letter change in patients’ DNA code makes a big difference in how they respond to the drug. Based on the results of multiple studies, Mylotarg was restored to the market in September, and researchers worldwide are pursuing a precision-medicine approach — targeting the drug to patients most likely to benefit — based on Meshinchi and colleagues’ results.

Capturing information from thousands of cells at once

Dr. Jason Bielas and biotech collaborators developed a new technology that reveals what genes are turned on — or expressed — in tens of thousands of cells at once. As the team demonstrated in their January paper, scientists can use the technology to see huge amounts of data from a single cell and large-scale data patterns across cells, all in a single experiment

Read the full article about the highlights from Fred Hutch science in 2017 by Sabin Russell and Susan Keown at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.