Dear NETRF Community,
A research portfolio is more than a list of grants. Each project asks its own question, but together those questions should move a field forward.
This month, NETRF’s Board of Directors approved a new portfolio of research awards through our 2026 Wide Net Request for Applications. After months of multi-stage expert review, our job was not simply to fund projects in score order, but to build a portfolio: looking across the strongest science and asking what the field needs, from deeper understanding of tumor biology and better experimental models to new therapies and more precise care.
That balance matters. Progress in a rare cancer depends on foundational discoveries, that may not change care immediately but make future advances possible. At the same time, we want to create clear routes for discoveries with translational potential to reach patients.
The stories in this issue reflect that range, from research on tumorlets (the cellular roots of small-intestinal neuroendocrine cancer) and epigenetics to emerging clinical trials. The CDH17 CAR T-cell update is a reminder that translation is rarely linear, and that a trial facing a safety limitation can still inform the next approach. In parallel, our first targeted Early Detection RFA continues to advance, with selected research teams now preparing full applications due October 6.
Together, these efforts reflect the strategy behind our Research Roadmap: invest across the research continuum, learn from every step, and build the knowledge and tools that make the next breakthroughs possible.
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| Anna Greene, PhD
NETRF Chief Scientific Officer
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Seeing the Invisible: How Tiny Tumorlets Could Change Our Understanding of Small-Intestinal Neuroendocrine Tumors
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| Tracing the Roots of Small-Intestinal NETs
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Small-intestinal neuroendocrine tumors (SI-NETs) are the most common primary cancer arising in the small intestine. They are often slow-growing, but they are difficult to study and difficult to treat once they have spread. One reason progress has been challenging is that these tumors do not genetically resemble many other cancers.
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| What Epigenetics Could Teach Us About Neuroendocrine Tumors
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Why do some neuroendocrine tumors grow slowly for years, while others progress more quickly? Researchers have often looked to changes in DNA for answers. But many well-differentiated
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NETs have a relatively low mutational burden, and researchers have identified relatively few recurrent cancer-driving mutations compared with many other solid tumors.
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Through the Know Your NETs survey, patients and caregivers asked many urgent questions about treatment: What happens after Lutathera? Can peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) be repeated? What is alpha PRRT? How do doctors decide what comes next? And why don’t we have clearer answers about treatment sequencing? Here are some things to consider.
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Thrivership: Moving Beyond Survival to a Life of Purpose, Connection, and Growth
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For many people living with neuroendocrine cancer, the journey begins with a singular focus: survival. A diagnosis brings uncertainty, difficult treatment decisions, symptom management challenges, and profound questions about the future. In those early days, making it through each appointment, scan, or treatment can feel like a victory in itself.
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Is Neuroendocrine Carcinoma Different From a Neuroendocrine Tumor?
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Patients often hear similar-sounding terms: neuroendocrine tumor, neuroendocrine carcinoma, NET, NEC, high-grade, poorly differentiated, well-differentiated. It can be confusing, especially when the words all include “neuroendocrine.”
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If Neuroendocrine Cancer Has Spread, Why Would Surgery Still Be Considered?
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When someone is diagnosed with metastatic neuroendocrine cancer, one of the most confusing questions can be: Why would doctors still talk about surgery if the cancer has already spread?
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Advancing Understanding of Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia (MEN): A Q&A With John Metzcar
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We recently spoke with John Metzcar, PhD, president of AMEND USA (the Association for Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Disorders), bioinformatics researcher, and neuroendocrine cancer patient.
John offers a unique perspective as both a MEN patient and a cancer researcher. He shares his hopes for the near future of neuroendocrine cancer research, his experience as a patient, and why finding community is so important.
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PanNETs Are Neuroendocrine Cancers
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Words matter in cancer, especially when the name of an organ becomes shorthand for a disease.
Organ-based descriptions can be useful for saying where a cancer began, but they do not always tell us what kind of cancer it is. For rarer cancers that arise in the same organ as a much more common cancer, that shorthand can be
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Updates to NETRF’s Board of Scientific Advisors
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| NETRF BOSA Leadership Transition
The Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation is pleased to share updates on the leadership and membership of its Board of Scientific Advisors (BOSA).
Effective June 1, 2026, Dawn Quelle, PhD, has concluded her tenure as BOSA Chair. Dr. Quelle became Co-Chair in 2021 and has provided exceptional scientific leadership during a period of significant growth in NETRF’s research programs. In recognition of her long service and continued dedication to our mission, she assumes the role of Chair Emeritus.
Daniel M. Halperin, MD, previously serving as Vice Chair, has been appointed BOSA Chair. Dr. Halperin is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine and a member of the gastrointestinal oncology team at Winship Cancer Institute.
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What Small Cell Lung Cancer Research Can Teach Us About Neuroendocrine Cancer
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In May, I attended the 2026 Small Cell Lung Cancer Consortium hosted by the National Cancer Institute. During the meeting, I kept our NETRF community in mind: patients, families, clinicians, researchers, and donors, all working toward better answers for neuroendocrine cancers. Small cell lung cancer is its own disease, distinct from the neuroendocrine cancers many in our community know personally. But it is also a neuroendocrine cancer, and that connection makes it worth watching. Progress there can help all of us ask sharper questions, design better studies, and find better treatments for neuroendocrine cancers that start elsewhere in the body.
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Grewal Research Update: Neuroendocrine Cancer Research at ASCO 2026
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Udhayvir Singh Grewal, MD
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The ASCO Annual Meeting 2026 is always a special meeting, but this year was particularly impactful as we saw a critical breakthrough in pancreatic cancer treatment (Daraxonrasib)- the greatest advance in decades for a difficult-to-treat cancer. This gives hope to our patients with pancreatic cancer (and beyond) that science and clinical trials can truly make the impossible possible! This year, we also saw many notable and important studies focused on neuroendocrine neoplasms, something that I am always on the lookout for.
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NETRF Clinical Trials Roundup, July 2026: New CAR T-Cell, Radiopharmaceutical, and DLL3-Targeted Approaches in NETs and NECs
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Clinical trial news in neuroendocrine cancer is moving quickly. In this roundup, we highlight recent developments across neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs), including a CAR T-cell therapy trial now pre-screening patients with NETs, new radiopharmaceutical therapy data, and growing interest in DLL3-targeted therapies for high-grade neuroendocrine cancers.
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Chimeric Halts CAR T-cell Trial Enrollment, Shifts Approach
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CDH17 Remains a Promising Target, Even as the CHM CDH17 Trial Changes Course
The CHM CDH17 clinical trial, a CAR T-cell therapy built on research NETRF helped fund, is for people with certain gastrointestinal cancers, including well-differentiated intestinal NETs. The therapy targets a protein called Cadherin 17, or CDH17, which is found on the surface of many neuroendocrine and other GI tumor cells. Chimeric Therapeutics has now stopped enrollment and dosing in the Phase 1 trial after side effects were observed at the highest dose level.
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Learn more about publication opportunities from our collaborator, Bioscientifica.
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Endocrine-Related Cancer is a peer-reviewed journal publishing basic laboratory, translational and clinical investigations of human health and disease focusing on endocrine neoplasias and hormone-dependent cancers, and review articles in these areas. Endocrine-Related Cancer is an official journal of the Society for Endocrinology and is endorsed by the Endocrine Society of Australia, the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society and the Japanese Hormone and Cancer Society.
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Endocrine Oncology is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal publishing basic, translational and clinical research and reviews on the interplay between hormones and cancer, and related topics. With Bioscientifica sponsoring the Article Publishing Charge during the launch phase, authors can publish for free for a limited time.
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| NET Research Foundation
100 Hancock Street
Third Floor
Quincy, MA 02171
(617) 946-1780 info@netrf.org
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The mission of the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation is to fund research to discover cures and more effective treatments for neuroendocrine cancer. NETRF is the largest global funder of neuroendocrine cancer research and a preeminent resource for expert patient education and support.
NETRF is a 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
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