St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, today announced an unprecedented effort to identify the genetic changes that give rise to some of the world’s deadliest childhood cancers. The team has joined forces to decode the genomes of more than 600 childhood cancer patients who have contributed tumor samples for this historic effort.

Charles Sherr, MD, PhD, co-chair of Genetics and Tumor Cell Biology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has been awarded the distinction of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society.

As health advocates gear up for this year’s Great American Smokeout, childhood cancer survivors who need help with smoking cessation can receive free counseling and nicotine replacement therapy from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute have formed a collaboration to provide proton therapy for St. Jude patients. The announcement follows the approval of the first clinical study to evaluate the use of proton therapy for rare brain cancers in children younger than 3 years old.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators were recently awarded a $23 million federal grant to launch a national study of the drug hydroxyurea to prevent first strokes in children and adolescents with sickle cell anemia (SCA).

Researchers identified a new chromosomal abnormality in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that appears to work in concert with another mutation to give rise to cancer. This latest anomaly is particularly common in children with Down syndrome.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators have discovered how destructive immune cells gain access to insulin-producing cells and help cause diabetes.