The Associated Press reported on a promising new drug that nearly doubled survival time for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer whose disease had stopped responding to treatment. UCLA’s Dr. Zev Wainberg, who helped lead the study, called the results “a very large step forward” for one of the deadliest forms of cancer. The experimental pill, daraxonrasib, targets a mutation found in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases and was associated with longer survival, less pain and improved quality of life compared with chemotherapy. (Also: USA Today). Read more about UCLA in today’s Forbes and Los Angeles Times.

More highlights from UCLA in the News: June 1, 2026

UCLA-led study finds promising results for lung cancer drug | City News Service

A study co-led by investigators at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center shows promising results for a drug that treats patients with a rare genetic type of early-stage lung cancer, researchers said Sunday. The study, funded by Eli Lilly and Company, indicated that the targeted cancer drug selpercatinib can significantly reduce the risk of lung cancer returning in patients with a rare genetic subtype of early-stage non- small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), potentially offering a new treatment option to help keep the disease from coming back after standard therapy. (UCLA’s Dr. Jonathan Goldman was quoted.)  

Can solar sails really send humans out into interstellar space? | Space.com

Artur Davoyan, an aerospace engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, added that sun-skimming solar sails could allow us to send a spacecraft to orbit the sun’s poles, studying our closest star from an angle that’s been otherwise impossible. Boosting a spacecraft into a polar orbit around the sun would take more propellant than a rocket can carry today, he added. “The only way that can be done is with the solar sails,” he told Space.com.

Research identifies stories missing from media, according to Black women | Forbes

According to UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report Presents: Streaming Television in 2024, over 90% of the top streaming shows were created by white creators, and white men created 78.9%.

LA politics fractures amid dissatisfaction, frayed alliances, conflict | Los Angeles Times

“LA is clearly a city that is steadily moving to the left,” said Jim Newton, executive director of UCLA Blueprint magazine and a veteran political journalist who worked for the LA Times for 25 years. “People are unhappy, but they’re not unhappy enough to vote for a Republican,” Guerra agreed. “They have been looking at the other alternatives: the Democratic Socialist party that is the challenge to the establishment.”

2025 wildfires were the costliest ever, researchers say | New York Times

“These fires, which weren’t at all gigantic, remind us that although area burned is the easiest fire-related variable to monitor, it is not necessarily the most important,” said Park Williams, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study. “Even small fires can have catastrophic consequences for society.”