Western New York healthcare and medical research leaders are joining forces in an effort to uncover hidden information from the cells of those who have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, seeking insights on how best to care for those who develop COVID-19 illness.

A new analysis led by physicians at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, published in JAMA Network Open, shows that some patients with small node-negative breast tumors that test positive for both the hormone receptor (HR) and ERBB2, also known as HER2/neu, proteins could benefit from chemotherapy in addition to surgery, radiation and endocrine therapy.

While it has long been thought that locally-delivered radiation therapy typically does not help to shrink tumors outside the field of irradiation, new preclinical research from a team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests a strategy for significantly increasing both the local and distant, or “abscopal,” effects of radiation.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center plans to offer convalescent plasma — in this case, plasma from the donated blood of healthy individuals who have had COVID-19 but have now fully recovered and cleared the virus from their bodies — to patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19 through an expanded access program authorized by the U.S. FDA.