SPRING 2021 MSKNewsMEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER Sweet Revenge Turning Cancer’s Hunger for Sugar against Itself ALSO INSIDE: MSK Nurses Earn National Recognition Vaccinating Our Patients against COVID-19 Improving the Health of NYC Taxi Drivers MSKHappenings MSK Nurses Receive Highest Honor with Renewed Magnet® Designation What the nurse appraiser saw at Memorial Sloan Kettering was so extraordinary, she couldn’t speak. She and two colleagues from Magnet® — a national program that rates top nursing programs around the country — had just left a three-day virtual site visit at MSK. Now, she was on a Zoom meeting with MSK leadership, trying to put into words what she had witnessed. “The appraiser was so overcome beyond the impressive seven that MSK the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. McCormick with emotion she had to defer to one of received in 2016. “MSK is the epitome of says, “It really shows the great resilience the others,” says Elizabeth McCormick, a learning organization,” said the ANCC in they have, to continue coming to work Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing its report, highlighting the many programs — despite personal risk — and giving Officer. “When she gathered herself, that help nurses develop professionally. care to our patients and supporting she said MSK has a nursing culture that For example, the Publishing@MSK them emotionally in new ways, like when other organizations only dream of. It program, launched in 2017, guides they couldn’t have visitors.” just shows how we continue to raise the nurses in developing and publishing The honor is especially gratifying bar here.” manuscripts in clinical journals. Other to Ms. McCormick, who has led the In November, for the second time, exemplars recognized MSK’s excellent nursing department for 20 years after MSK received Magnet Recognition by record in minimizing pressure ulcers beginning her career at the bedside the American Nurses Credentialing and hospital-acquired infections — herself. In March, she announced she Center (ANCC). Bestowed every four surpassing national benchmarks in every would be retiring from MSK at the end years, it’s the highest national honor for single inpatient unit. In all, the ANCC of 2021. “I started out as a nurse to make nursing, given to only about eight percent affirmed MSK’s nurses’ superb skills and a difference in the lives of individual of hospitals. compassionate care. patients,” she says. “At MSK, it’s been In the 2020 designation, the ANCC Even more extraordinary, MSK earned about supporting the more than 5,000 cited 12 exemplars — specific examples the second Magnet recognition as nurses nurses here so every one of them can that highlight excellence in nursing — well cared for people with cancer during give the best possible care.” l “It really shows the great resilience [our nurses] have, to continue coming to work — despite personal risk — and giving care to our patients and supporting them emotionally in new ways, like when they couldn’t have visitors.” —Elizabeth McCormick 2 | MSKNews Patient Ann Caruso receives the COVID-19 vaccine (above). Photo courtesy Ann Caruso. Security guard Curtis Norton (below) and nurse practitioner Katherine O’Connor (bottom) after receiving their vaccinations. MSK Works Overtime to Get Our Patients Vaccinated Giving COVID-19 vaccines to MSK “Vaccinating our patients, and patients has been a priority for the getting the vaccine ourselves as hospital this year. healthcare workers, is one of the most Knowing that patients are anxious important things we can do right now about getting protected from the virus, to help end this terrible pandemic,” which is especially devastating to people says Chief Medical Epidemiologist with cancer, the MSK COVID-19 Vaccine Mini Kamboj, who leads the COVID-19 Care Team and countless other health- Vaccine Care Team along with Chief care heroes at MSK have been working Pharmacy Officer Scott Freeswick. around the clock to deliver the lifesaving “One down! One more to go!!!” vaccines as quickly as possible to as wrote patient Ann Caruso on Instagram many people as possible. It’s been a when she got her vaccine. “So happy major challenge because supply is limited to do my part and feel a little safer in and MSK’s allotment is determined by this world.” l New York State and New York City. Visit mskcc.org/covid19-vaccine for more information. Read more stories online: mskcc.org/spring-2021 | 3 Sweet Revenge: Taking Advantage of Cancer Cells’ Hunger for Sugar and Other Nutrients Americans have a love-hate relationship with sugar. Our favorite foods are full of it, yet nutritionists warn that sugar provides empty calories — good for putting on weight but not much else. Cancer doctors are concerned, too, since obesity is a major risk factor for cancer. Scientists have known for over a century one of the body’s main fuels. It is delivered that cancer cells have a great appetite to our muscles, which use it for energy, for sugar. It’s the basis for the diagnostic while fructose is quickly used up by the imaging test called a PET scan. Tumors take liver or converted to glucose. up sugar at much higher rates than normal Fructose has a fleeting existence in cells, and you can see this difference on the body, which is why it hasn’t received film: the darker the spot, the higher the as much attention from cancer researchers sugar uptake. as glucose. But that’s beginning to Why cancer has such a taste for sugar change. In December 2020, molecular is not fully understood. But researchers at pharmacologists Kayvan Keshari and Memorial Sloan Kettering are taking a fresh Michael Kharas published a study in the look at this and related questions about journal Cell Metabolism that looked at cancer metabolism. By understanding fructose’s role in leukemia. The scientists the unique ways that cancer cells break became interested in the topic after down and use sugar and other nutrients, observing high levels of fructose in the bone scientists hope to be able to turn cancer’s marrow of people with acute myeloid appetite against itself. leukemia (AML), a type of blood cancer. “Fructose sugar really shouldn’t be What’s in the White Stuff? present at those levels in the bone marrow,” When most people hear the word sugar, Dr. Keshari says. “We wondered: What if they think of the white crystals that give fructose is present in high amounts around cakes and pastries their sweetness. This the AML cells? If so, can they use it, and particular form of sugar is sucrose, which is what are they doing with it?” actually a combination of two different sugar molecules, glucose and fructose, What’s Sugar Doing in People linked by a chemical bond. with Leukemia? When we eat foods containing To answer these questions, the researchers sucrose, our bodies break it apart into designed a system to follow what happens glucose and fructose molecules. Glucose is when AML cells are fed a diet of fructose. 4 | MSKNews “It raised the question: Could we create a situation where we force the cancer cells to use the serine synthesis pathway — and then we block the pathway so that the cells die?” —Kayvan Keshari Michael Kharas (left) and Kayvan Keshari ReadBonus more stories online: mskcc.org/spring-2021 | 5 They discovered that AML cells can indeed metabolism and cancer and also biochem- consume the fructose, but they must ical pathways. Textbooks are filled with metabolize it in a unique way: They launch these studies. a series of chemical reactions called the But interest in metabolism began serine synthesis pathway (SSP). The SSP is to wane in the 1940s, when scientists an alternative means of metabolizing discovered that DNA contains our genetic sugar, one that can be blocked with the use information. From that point on, determining of drugs. That gave the researchers an idea. how genes work took center stage among “It raised the question: Could we create many biologists. a situation where we force the cancer cells But metabolism is hot once again — to use the serine synthesis pathway — and thanks in part to work done by MSK then we block the pathway so that the researchers over the past decade. They have cells die?” Dr. Keshari says. It would be like found that the molecules of metabolism forcing traffic to an off-ramp that leads to can directly influence the work a a dead end. cell performs, including turning certain The researchers explored doing just genes on or off, which can lead to cancer. that by using mouse models of leukemia. Those discoveries have encouraged They injected mice with fructose and then researchers to dust off their textbooks and gave them anti-SSP drugs. It worked. revisit Warburg’s century-old observation, This combination effectively prevented this time applying what they’ve learned leukemia growth in the mice. The hope is about genes, proteins, and signaling that this approach will have the same pathways. effect in people with leukemia. The Commander-in-Chief of Metabolism: Everything Old Is Metabolism New Again One such researcher is Sloan Kettering Cancer biologists have been researching Institute immunologist Ming Li. In a paper metabolism for 100 years. Back in the published in January 2021 in Science, he 1920s, a German biologist named Otto and his colleagues discovered a new rea- Warburg was the first to observe that son why fast-dividing cells, like cancer and cancer cells tend to consume extraordinary immune cells, rely on Warburg metabolism amounts of glucose and break it down in in the first place. a seemingly inefficient way called aerobic It comes down to a link between glycolysis — now known as Warburg Warburg metabolism and the activity of metabolism.