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How is cancer research being affected by COVID-19? Susanna Greer, PhD—Scientific Director, Clinical Cancer Research and Immunology, at the American Cancer Society—describes conversations she’s had with ACS grantees across the country about how the pandemic has affected their research and their labs. Then we were joined (11:16) by Anthony Leung, PhD, an American Cancer Society grantee and an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Leung’s research focuses on how gene regulation impacts diseases such as cancer and virus infection. His work has never been so timely, and in this conversation he helps us understand why RNA is so important, what can happen when RNA regulation goes wrong, and how a deeper understanding of RNA could be critical to fighting cancer and COVID-19. For information and resources about cancer and COVID-19, please visit cancer.org/coronavirus. 11:16 – How the research community has been impacted 15:07 – How the members of his research lab are supporting each other 18:35 – What is RNA? A really helpful analogy to help us understand why it’s so important. 21:18 – How a deeper understanding of RNA is so important to developing treatments against cancer and COVID-19 26:14 – How RNA regulation changes in stressed cells. One thing that cancer cells and cells infected by a virus such as COVID-19 have in common is that they are stressed. 29:30 – A particularly important way that protein is modified, and what that matters in cancer and COVID-19 31:58 –PARP inhibitors are currently approved by the FDA to treat multiple cancers. How do these drugs work? In which cancer types are they used? 35:30 – How the protein modification that his lab studies is important, not just in cancer, but also in coronavirus infection. 40:31 – A message he’d like to share with cancer survivors Photo credit: Harry Giglio/Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Also pictured: Judy Ochs