Researchers have found that studying the landscape of DNA and RNA alterations across multiple organs of metastasis may provide a new direction in cancer therapeutics to address treatment failure, according to a new study published by Liu et al in Nature Medicine. The new findings from analyzing genetic changes in the organs of recently deceased patients may help researchers understand how metastatic cutaneous melanoma spreads in those who had initially benefited from precision therapies. In the new study, the researchers used “rapid” or “warm” autopsies—conducted within hours of death in patients who had previously consented to them—to retrieve tumors that had spread to all possible organs of those who had initially benefited from either MAPK inhibitors or immune checkpoint blockade. In a companion press release on the findings issued by UCLA Health, lead study author Sixue Liu, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Division of Dermatology at the university of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, explained: “We analyzed the DNA and RNA landscape from this autopsy cohort and, cognizant of the caveats of cross-study comparisons, singled out salient traits of terminal melanoma that distinguished it from early-stage melanoma and melanoma that had never been treated with either form of therapy.”