Hi, Cancer Briefing readers. STAT’s Drew Joseph wrote a great story yesterday on the discovery of a rare germline EGFR mutation. When researchers analyzed data from 23andMe, they found that carriers seemed to have a 25 times greater risk of developing lung cancer compared to non-carriers. It also seems to be associated with people of European descent and has the highest frequency among people from Southern Appalachia. You can check out the story below.

I also came across an interesting study published in Cell a few months ago. Here, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania looked at why some patients respond to CAR-T cell therapy while others don’t in glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer. The key insight from this study seems to be that patients who had more T regulatory cells and more certain myeloid cells in the cerebral spinal fluid post treatment seemed to be less likely to respond. That might mean that approaches to modulate other kinds of immune cells may be important to getting CAR-T to work better.

Lastly, on a personal note, I lost my beloved cat Sasha this week. She was with me for nearly 12 years. I got her when I first started working as a journalist when I was 23. I know everyone thinks their pet is the best, but Sasha was so special that people got their own cats after cat-sitting for her (thereby ruining them as live-in cat sitters). Please give your pets a squeeze from me.