Four research institutions launch the Weill Cancer Hub East

In March, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research joined Princeton University, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine to launch the Weill Cancer Hub East. Seeded with a $50 million gift from the Weill Family Foundation and supplemented with $75 million from the partner institutions, the Hub will over the next decade deploy interdisciplinary teams at the interface of tumor immunology and metabolism to discover and develop new strategies for cancer therapy. Its researchers will explore how metabolism shapes the tumor microenvironment and how the food we eat and the microbes that aid its digestion influence cancer therapy. The Hub’s researchers will also evaluate how new drugs, like GLP-1 agonists, might affect cancer progression and treatment and examine strategies to modulate metabolism and microbiomes to reprogram the tumor microenvironment to improve the efficacy of cancer therapy. It will also conduct clinical trials to test its clinical hypotheses in patients.The Hub’s research program dovetails neatly with that of the Ludwig Institute, and not only due to the Institute’s continuing leadership in tumor immunology and immunotherapy. The Ludwig Princeton Branch, which is affiliated with RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute, is a global hotspot of research on cancer metabolism and metabolomics. It is already participating in a research initiative the Institute launched last year across Ludwig Branches, Centers and host institutions exploring the links between diet and immunometabolism. Further, two Ludwig Institute researchers—Ludwig Princeton Director Joshua Rabinowitz and Co-director of the Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory at Weill Cornell and Board Member Jedd Wolchok—are on the scientific steering committee that will oversee the Hub’s research program. Looks like we’ll be playing a prominent role in this exciting new endeavor.