The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2026 Annual Meeting featured research from authors and trainees affiliated with the University of Illinois Cancer Center, the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and UI Health, the academic health enterprise at UIC.
The meeting, which was held April 17-22 in San Diego, California, gathered together scientists, clinicians, other health care professionals, survivors, patients and advocates to share the latest advances in cancer science and medicine.
A listing of abstracts featuring Cancer Center, UIC and UI Health authors is below. Abstracts were published in the AACR journal Cancer Research.
Mining social determinants of health documentation patterns for genitourinary cancer patients using natural language processing
ET-resistant cell populations in ER positive breast cancer: From profiling to therapeutic targeting
Stearic acid-macrophage crosstalk identifies MIF-CD44 signaling as a therapeutic target in lung cancer initiation
Stress-responsive glucocorticoid receptor signaling shapes the immune tumor microenvironment in lung cancer
Fatty acid exposure promotes age-related mammary tissue alterations with pro-tumorigenic potential
Macrophage immunometabolism as a targetable driver of early lung cancer progression
Tumor cell JAG1 promotes lymph node metastasis and predicts recurrence in lymph node positive breast cancer patients
Notch4 blockade reprograms tumor-associated macrophages and enhances anti-tumor inflammatory signature in breast cancer
Biomarker-driven restoration of tumor provisional matrix signaling network reverses resistance to checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy
Ciliated cells drive critical STING-mediated tumor suppression in fallopian tube epithelium
Promoting awareness and enhancing access to low-dose computed tomography screening for early detection of lung cancer in underrepresented minority communities in Northern Illinois
Epidemiology of folate receptor alpha expression in ovarian cancer by age, race/ethnicity, and histotype in a real-world, US-based clinicogenomic database
Absence of somatic copy number alterations in non-neoplastic prostate epithelium
Surface engineered-NK/trastuzumab cells as a novel immunotherapy for HER2-low breast cancer
Effects of arylsulfatase B and pembrolizumab on the progression of syngeneic B16F10 metastatic pulmonary melanomas
Modulating the tumor microenvironment with an engineered oncolytic herpesvirus facilitates potent antitumor response
A body mass index polygenic risk score (PRSBMI) and obesity-related cancer risk among women in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos
FOXM1 as a drug target in NF1-associated malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors
Expanding the therapeutic potential of TXNRD inhibitors for triple-negative breast cancer
Window of opportunity trial of preoperative low dose azacitidine in high-risk early-stage breast cancer
Parallel microfluidic platform enables efficient label-free capture of p16+ circulating tumor cells in oropharyngeal cancer
The Miniature Oncopig® cancer model as an innovative large animal platform for preclinical pharmaceutical evaluation
Cardio-kidney metabolic health among adult cancer survivors in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos
Epidemiology, survival, and prognostic factors of malignant eyelid tumors: A 17-year population-based study
Eyelid malignancies on the rise? A population-based analysis of merkel cell carcinoma, melanoma, and sebaceous carcinoma from the SEER database
Adrenergic signaling in adipocytes drives ovarian cancer cell invasion
Molecularly-informed prediction of treatment efficacy in GDSC cell line data using computational reasoning
Molecularly-informed prediction of treatment efficacy in the GENIE BPC NSCLC cohort using computational reasoning
Mitochondrial creatine kinase promotes hepatocellular carcinoma progression
Development and preclinical validation of magnetomotive embolization for enhanced targeting of hepatocellular carcinoma
Modeling tumor microenvironment-mediated resistance in NSCLC using a high-throughput spheroid microarray platform
Modeling late-stage ovarian cancer and validating oncolytic adenoviral tools for transgene expression and tumor monitoring
Mapping immuno-vascular signatures to characterize blood brain barrier disruption and tumor colonization in triple negative breast cancer brain metastasis
Association between MLK4 expression and colon cancer patient survival
