By addressing fundamental scientific questions, CRI is improving our understanding of the biological basis of disease and making discoveries that have the potential to improve the treatment of diseases and help to cure somebody who would not be cured otherwise.
BREAKTHROUGH MEDICAL RESEARCH
Discovery timeline dates represent the month discoveries were published.
January 25
January 2012
The environment in which blood-forming stem cells are maintained within the bone marrow identified. This is an important step toward increasing the safety and effectiveness of bone-marrow transplantation. Read More 
June 6
June 2012
First measurements of energy-forming pathways discovered in living brain tumors in mice. An accurate picture of how metabolic pathways work in tumors of living animals is key to finding new treatments.Read More
November 7
November 2012
Innovative experimental model for predicting the progression of skin cancer in patients discovered. This could lead to new prognostic markers that identify patients at highest risk of disease progression and new therapies.Read More
February 24
February 2013
Environment where specialized blood-forming cells produce infection-fighting white blood cells (T cells and B cells) identified. These findings may help increase the safety and effectiveness of bone-marrow transplants.Read More
July 10
July 2013
New markers found to distinguish biologically distinct subpopulations of stem cells and multipotent progenitors in the blood-forming system. This will improve the ability of scientists to study these cells.Read More
September 1
September 2013
Genetic and Metabolic Disease Program launched to better understand the biological basis of childhood genetic diseases and to improve therapy options.Read More
October 24
October 2013
New therapeutic targets identified for patients with the common form of lung cancer among smokers, nonsmokers and people under age 45.Read More
November 7
November 2013
Reactivation of the gene Lin28 accelerated tissue repair after injury, partly by altering cellular metabolism. This means metabolic drugs could potentially be used to promote tissue regeneration after injury.Read More
January 1
January 2014
Estrogen found to promote blood-forming stem cell function. Increased estrogen levels during pregnancy activate blood-forming stem cells and increase production of red blood cells which is necessary to maintain cell counts during pregnancy.Read More
May 13
May 2014
The ability to identify and purify neural stem cells directly from the brain made possible for the first time, allowing researchers to study these cells in vivo and in more detail than before.Read More
May 22
May 2014
The triggering mechanism that causes a metabolic pathway called the Krebs cycle to run in reverse identified. Tumors using this pathway can be difficult to treat because this pathway allows cells to resist chemotherapy.Read More
June 20
June 2014
Key biomarker needed for identification, characterization, and enrichment of bone-forming stem cells required to maintain and repair the adult skeleton discovered.Read More
July 28
July 2014
New “gene edited” mouse models of liver cancer that improve our ability to study the disease developed.Read More
August 11
August 2014
Lin28b identified as a contributor to the development of childhood liver cancer and potential therapeutic target. This research could lead to new strategies for targeting certain childhood cancers at a molecular level.Read More
November 3
November 2014
An alternative metabolic pathway that allows cancer cells to survive periods of stress identified. Understanding how this metabolic pathway works could lead to the development of new therapies.Read More
September 23
September 2015
CRI first to use a tissue-clearing technique to localize rare stem cells and to identify the location of blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrow, improving our understanding of the microenvironment in the bone marrow.Read More
October 12
October 2015
MicroRNA responsible for preventing the development of liver cancer also found to regulate liver regeneration. These findings improve our understanding of the complicated interaction of cellular processes that contribute to cancer and tissue repair.Read More
October 14
October 2015
Antioxidants found to promote the spread of cancer cells. These results raise the possibility that cancer should be treated with pro-oxidants rather than antioxidants and provides an explanation why treating cancer with antioxidants often leads to worse outcomes.Read More
November 16
November 2015
Researchers identified a secondary, emergency blood-formation system in the spleen. With this new information, therapies could be developed to enhance blood formation following chemotherapy or bone-marrow transplantation to accelerate recovery.Read More
January 11
January 2016
Researchers pioneer technologies to understand DNA sequences that regulate the ability of genes to be turned on and off during blood cell development. These discoveries pave the way to discover new regulatory DNA sequences that govern the production of blood cells and leukemia development.Read More
February 4
February 2016
New method for studying metabolism in tumors within patients developed, overturning long-standing perceptions about cancer metabolism that were based on studies of cancer cells in laboratory dishes. These discoveries could lead to new ways of diagnosing and treating cancer.Read More
March 25
March 2016
Inactivating Arid1a, a gene associated with some human cancers, promotes liver regeneration. This study opens up new areas of investigation related to ways of rejuvenating tissues without increasing cancer risk.Read More
March 29
March 2016
Diet found to determine the balance between fat formation and bone formation in adult bone marrow. This settles a long-standing controversy and could have implications for treating osteoporosis.Read More
April 7
April 2016
Researchers discovered a metabolic pathway that helps cancer cells thrive in conditions that are lethal to normal cells, particularly the oxidative stress that limits cancer progression.Read More
December 13
December 2016
New bone-forming growth factor, Osteolectin (Clec11a), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has the potential to promote bone regeneration, discovered.Read More
January 20
January 2017
A novel technology to precisely control focal ischemia (strokes) with magnetic nanoparticles injected into the blood developed, which is expected to lead to a better understanding of how strokes damage the brain and how the brain attempts to regenerate.Read More
May 24
May 2017
A new pathway that regulates mitochondrial function during blood cell production discovered. This discovery contributes to our understanding of the hematologic defects associated with mitochondrial diseases and aging.Read More
June 20
June 2017
An aggressive subset of lung cancer found to rely on a previously unknown mechanism for making DNA. These findings could result in new ways to treat lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.Read More
August 21
August 2017
Stem cells discovered to take up unusually high levels of vitamin C, which regulates their function and suppresses the development of leukemia. These findings have implications for older patients with a common precancerous condition known as clonal hematopoiesis.Read More
August 24
August 2017
A new high-throughput method developed to study regions of DNA that control which genes are turned on and off in cells. This method will allow researchers to better understand how genes become dysregulated in cancer and other diseases.Read More
October 5
October 2017
Lactate, long considered a waste product of cancer cells, discovered to fuel growing tumors. These findings represent a major shift in how researchers view lung cancer metabolism. They represent a new path of study for therapies and imaging techniques.Read More
February 8
February 2018
The liver has an unusual amount of polyploid cells which have multiple extra copies of each gene. These cells are less likely than normal cells to transform into cancer cells after chronic liver damage. These findings address a long-standing mystery in liver biology by suggesting that polyploidy suppresses the development of cancer.Read More
May 23
May 2018
Ralph DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D. selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator.Read More
October 15
October 2018
Sean Morrison, Ph.D., elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).Read More
April 4
April 2019
Genetic mutations that accumulate in the adult liver as a result of chronic liver damage found to promote tissue regeneration without necessarily promoting liver cancer. This raises the possibility of identifying therapeutic strategies that promote liver regeneration without increasing cancer risk.Read More
April 30
April 2019
Integration of genomic and metabolomic data to identify inborn errors of metabolism in patients, potentially opening a new approach to diagnosing pediatric metabolic diseases.Read More
August 9
April 2020
Ralph DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D., inducted into the Association of American Physicians.Read More
