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How gut bacteria impact cancer treatment: Meet the STAT Madness 2018 editors’ pick

A research team from Texas that is studying how our gut microbes help us respond to cancer therapy wins the Editors' Pick in STAT Madness.

The idea came to her during someone else’s talk.

Dr. Jennifer Wargo listened as a researcher described mice responding differently to certain cancer therapies depending on the composition of bacteria in their guts. She was intrigued.

“I got up to the microphone, and I was like, ‘This is amazing! Have you studied this in patients?’” Wargo recalled. “They said they were planning to do so, but I saw this as a huge opportunity. … So I ran back home to MD Anderson and wrote a protocol.”

Three years later, Wargo, from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, published her team’s findings in Science. On Monday, STAT announced that Wargo’s work was the “editors’ pick” in , a tournament in its second year that highlights top projects in science

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