This summer, Aflac, the leader in voluntary insurance sales at U.S. worksites, is bringing My Special Aflac Ducks to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. My Special Aflac Duck, designed by Sproutel, is a social robot that uses medical play, lifelike movement, and emotions to engage and help comfort kids during their cancer care. Today’s first-ever delivery to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center follows more than 18 months of child-centered research conducted with children, parents and medical providers at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

A scientist at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has developed the first dedicated tool for analyzing a DNA-mapping technology known as ATAC-seq, a technique that identifies the gene “switches” responsible for cancer development and progression. Developed in collaboration with the University at Buffalo, the innovative computational method, named HMMRATAC, could vastly improve current methods of cancer detection and treatment.

At Sahlen Field, life is like a box of Mystery Balls – you never know what you’re going to get! The Buffalo Bisons are putting on their popular Mystery Ball Night on Tuesday, August 27 at Sahlen Field, in partnership with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, as a night of hope and support for patients, survivors and caregivers.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have received more than a dozen recent grant awards totaling more than $15.4 million. These competitive awards from both government agencies and private funders will fuel research to overcome obstacles in treating diseases like prostate, breast, colon and lung cancer, as well as less-common cancers like multiple myeloma and esophageal cancer. They include the first National Institutes of Health funding to study a new electronic tobacco device, plus new state funds from Empire State Development supporting Roswell Park’s role in the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot initiative.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center immunology researchers have uncovered a biomarker that may help explain why some patients respond better than others to a common chemotherapy treatment for liver cancer. They hope that their analysis of immune responses among patients receiving sorafenib can lead to more individualized treatment options and better overall outcomes for patients diagnosed with the disease.